trefor.net - Page 23 of 92 - Insider comments from the world of internet communications

Winner of most number of names for trousers competition

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 28 April, 2014
No Comments on Winner of most number of names for trousers competition

You will all remember the kecks are ready mega trousers competition where entrants had to find the most names for that article of clothing. Well we have a winner. Liz Fletcher reminded me of this at #UKNOF28 last week and I duly delivered her of her prize – a large glass of sauvignon blanc. Would have been cheaper had she been a beer drinker but hey, let’s not nit pick eh?

Congrats Liz. Look out for other terrific trefor.net prize competitions as they happen:)

Other trefor.net terrific prize comps:

Spot the IP Phone
Royal baby name competition winners
The trefor.net TGIF megamug prize with pens and tshirt competition

PS Notice the hearing aid coming out of Liz’ head – she should invest in something a little more discrete

Engineer social networking voip

VoIP week on trefor.net and a Tweetup in Town after the ITSPA workshop on Thursday 8th May

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 28 April, 2014
No Comments on VoIP week on trefor.net and a Tweetup in Town after the ITSPA workshop on Thursday 8th May

From time to time we have technology themed weeks on trefor.net. The last one was Peering Week where we published around 20 guest posts on the very niche subject of Internet Exchange Peering. Next week is VoIP week.

VoIP is far from being a niche subject. Every man and his dog¹ uses VoIP if they but knew it. It’s VoIP week because at the Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association (ITSPA) we are having a technical workshop on VoIP provisioning. VoIP provisioning is a very niche subject. Many people might also consider it to be a very boring subject.

Be assured that whilst provisioning is not every man’s kettle of fish (or words to that effect) it should be of interest to everyone involved in providing services. This is because the VoIP industry needs to coordinate how they go about providing their services so that they are not exposed to fraud.

For example if every VoIP phone was shipped with a default username and password that would be silly. It happens and people lose money when someone hacks in using said default username and password and starts running up big bills to premium rate numbers in the Philippines (or Senegal or anywhere really).

The industry needs the support of handset manufacturers in deciding how to go about methods of making their services secure that can be applied across many different brands of VoIP phone.

Details of the ITSPA workshop can be found here. The workshop and associated networking drinks will finish at 6pm. Thereafter we plan to adjourn to a nearby pub for a trefor.net tweetup.

This is open to anyone so if you are a regular reader/commenter/writer/tweeter (etc) on or with trefor.net you are welcome. Stick the date in your calendar and I’ll follow up with a venue when I’ve sorted one out. The Workshop is at 5 Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7RD so it will be around there somewhere.

Thursday 8th May trefor.net tweetup 6pm onwards.

Check out all the Peering Week posts here.

¹ Yes even the dog. Believe you me:)

chromebook End User google phones

First night without a phone

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 27 April, 2014
3 Comments on First night without a phone

Yesterday I smashed the screen on my S4. Correction. I accidentally dropped it and the screen smashed. This wasn’t a wanton act of vandalism by a man frustrated with the inadequacies of his communicator.

Although I’ve stuck my SIM in Kid4’s Galaxy Mini i’ve decided that to use that device is too much of a hassle. It wouldn’t let me delete his Google account as to do so would render some of the apps unusable. I did add my personal and business accounts to the device but deleted them before they had managed to synch. I decided I didn’t want my credentials on someone else’s device if deleting them after the fact was going to be problematic.

Now I lie in bed typing on my Acer C720 Chromebook having used it to check Facebook, Twitter, respond to a comment on this blog, read the papers (the news is the same wherever you look), check mails, look at the weather forecast and no doubt do a few other things subconsciously that I’ve already forgotten about. Ordinarily I’d have done all that on the phone. The Chromebook form factor isn’t as convenient for a Sunday morning.

Two other things I’ve not done with my phone spring to mind. One is I haven’t taken a photo of the beech hedge in our back garden. It is just coming into leaf and I quite liked the way that one part of it is budding before the rest showing a little splash of green colour in an otherwise brown hedge. I use the phone a lot in this way, taking ad hoc pictures of things that catch my eye. Check out the photo of petals lying in the road at the end of the post.

The other thing left undone is that I didn’t wake up in the night and didn’t check the phone. Maybe I wasn’t destined to wake up last night or maybe it was because the phone wasn’t there. Why on earth do I need to use the phone at 3am anyway? I don’t.

There is a third “not done” thing. I went out to early doors at the Morning Star without a phone. I also left my wallet at home and just took cash. Normally before leaving the house I check that I have phone wallet and house keys. Yesterday I just checked the house keys. Very liberating. Conversation flowed in the pub and I was 20 minutes later than normal leaving. This was done with a modicum of guilt knowing that Anne couldn’t call me to remind me that tea would very shortly be on the table.

It mattered not. The initial experiment was a success and my first 24 hours without a phone has almost been completed. I’m feeling remarkably relaxed…

Weekend financial advice – how to get a mortgage

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 27 April, 2014
3 Comments on Weekend financial advice – how to get a mortgage

When Anne and I shacked up together we moved up from London to Lincoln. Dahn sarf we had grown accustomed to the notion of having to stretch to a 4 x joint salary mortgage to be able to afford a small flat. In Lincoln it wasn’t going to need anything like that. In fact we could have easily bought a house on 3 x one salary.

We found a suitable gaff/love nest and off I trotted to the Halifax Building Society to sort the mortgage out. The manager gave me a grilling: did I know that buying a house was an expensive game, solicitors fees, furniture, deposit etc. We would need a fair bit of cash to get going.

I told him I didn’t have any savings but didn’t they do 100% mortgages? After all that’s what I did on my previous house. Ah thought the manager, what happened to the profit on that first house. It went on wine, women and male voice choirs I replied.

Realising that the interview wasn’t going too well I said that the only reason I was giving Halifax first refusal was because my fiancee had a savings account with them. Ahah said the manager. How much money does she have? Well every month she puts £20 in and every other month she takes £40 out I said:)

We left the meeting with him wanting to arrange to see both of us before making a decision. Sod you I thought. Who’d want to do business with someone stupid enough to not just give me the money straight away.

I went next door to the Alliance & Leicester Building Society. Told the manger I had all the cash for the deposit/solicitors fees/furniture etc saved up and that either of us could afford the mortgage payments on one salary. He offered me a mortgage on the spot and gave me the paperwork to take home and complete.

When I got home I rang Lloyds Bank to ask for a £5k loan to cover the house deposit. Where was I getting the mortgage from said the manager? A&L. Why don’t you get it from us said he? Do you do 100% mortgages then? No he said but I’ll lend you the other 5% as well!!!

That was over 25 years ago and we’ve been with Lloyds Bank ever since.

That’s how you go about getting a mortgage:)

Look out for further helpful financial hints from trefor.net at the weekend – coming soon how to with the lottery and other pie in the sky hopeless aspirations.

Mobile phone insurance claims

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 26 April, 2014
2 Comments on Mobile phone insurance claims

Just had to claim on my Lloyds Bank current account insurance for a repair to my mobile phone. Dropped it whilst getting into the car this morning. Doh!

Took me 3 minutes to get through the ivr tree only to end up with a person who could not answer my question and forwarded me to another ivr tree whereupon I eventually ended up in a queue to a third party insurance company partner who was “currently experiencing extremely high levels of calls” and said would I mind awfully waiting. I made that last but up.

Sorted it quickly enough mind you, once I’d got through to a person. Sounded Scottish though the memory may be playing tricks with me. At least it wasn’t overseas somewhere.

Makes me thing if the Scots do go for independence, and as far as I am concerned it is entirely up to them, will we start complaining about outsourcing call centre jobs over the border?

“Aargh I’m not using that firm again. They use a non-domestic call centre. You speak to someone who has no idea where Lincoln is and think it is somewhere near London. Couldn’t understand a word they were saying!”

I was on the phone for 15 minutes 45 seconds. Anne and I dread it whenever we have to call an insurance company. The worst is motor insurance. You can write off a measurable portion of your life in call queuing and then answering all the security question and after all that they ask you questions you don’t know the answer to such as the fuel consumption of your 1956 Ford Popular¹ or what were the three points from 1986 all about?

The S4 still functions as a phone but the screen is totally pooped. I was able to call it, hear incoming email alerts, “find” it online and then do a factory reset. So now I’m going to be without a phone for around 10 days whilst I wait for the email with the appropriate approval to return voucher and then the 3 days to assess the damage once the phone has been received followed by the 3 days to fix/return.

I have temporarily moved my SIM to Kid4’s Galaxy Mini. The question will be whether it is worth doing this or should I experiment with not having a phone for the ten days? The hardest bit will be at night where the S4 is very handy for tweeting between the sheets, reading the papers first thing etc. Also the lack of a decent camera is going to be a nuisance.

I did consider just getting a new phone but it’s £50 insurance excess versus a few hundred quid and I want to wait for the new Nexus anyway. Be assured I will keep you updated on this most important of modern sociological issues. To have a phone or to have not.

Other insurance related posts:
This iPhone is dead
23 mins on phone to insurance company
PPI Insurance – are you eligible for £7,500 compensation?

¹ No smart arse comments please – I have no idea when the Ford Popular was manufactured and I’m not interested enough to look it up.

End User food and drink

The perfect bacon sandwich

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 26 April, 2014
7 Comments on The perfect bacon sandwich

This weekend we are featuring the humble bacon sandwich. I say humble but really the bacon sandwich is royalty in the culinary world, on a par with the finest dishes served by the best chefs in their Michelin starred mansions.

There are many ways of serving the bacon sandwich. Individuals will have their own views as to the best way and who is to say they aren’t all right. This is a highly subjective matter. In the analysis that follows the various variables for each aspect of the making of a bacon sandwich are discussed and my own preferred recipe is offered as a benchmark. Rank others in comparison, better or worse, as you see fit.

The bacon

The choice of bacon is of fundamental importance. In the first instance any bacon that comes in a package labelled BOGOF should be avoided at all cost. This will be cheap water filled rubbish. The slices will be so thin you will be able to see through them and when cooking the bacon will emit a yukky white substance that apparently is part of the preservative injected into the meat during processing. The water will steam the bacon and you will find it very difficult to get the right “finish”.

Reality is it is difficult to find any bacon that doesn’t have the white stuff in it. Experimentation will allow you to identify the brand that suits you best. Look for the words “dry cure” and “thick cut”. Your are most likely to find the best bacon at a real butchers and not in a supermarket. You have been warned.

There is a valid debate on whether to use back bacon or streaky. Streaky is undoubtedly more flavoursome due to its having more fat but back does tend to provide a meatier filling. The American habit of over-frying streaky is usually to be avoided and American bacon tends to be too salty.

The bread

The best bread to use for a bacon sandwich is undoubtedly crusty white unsliced. You can use pre-sliced crusty white but the uniformity of the slice doesn’t quite feel right. Self-slicing produces a variation in cut that suits the rustic nature of this sandwich and makes for a different culinary experience at each meal¹.

The mass produced sliced white bread that comes with brand names advertised on television is not appropriate for a bacon sandwich unless you are a guest at someone’s house and your host is providing the breakfast. One assumes in this instance that a considerable amount of beer was downed the night before and you are pretty grateful for anything that staves off the after-effects of the evening.

Under no circumstances should brown bread be used and if rolls are the only option the posher they are the better.

The debate over toasting has raged long and hard. Toasting the bread for your bacon sandwich is perfectly acceptable though it is a shame to do this if the bread is really fresh. Toasting crusty white bread more than two days old is the preferred method for this age of bread.

The bread/toast should be buttered. Margarine doesn’t cut it. Some people are known to prefer no butter. Whilst this is acceptable it should be understood that a bacon sandwich made without butter is never going to attain perfection.

Grilling versus frying

A no brainer really. Frying always produces the best flavour in a bacon sandwich. Grilling shrinks the meat. Lard is the best option for oil although it is recognised that the use of lard is controversial to the point of unacceptability in our modern health conscious society. Cooking oil is an acceptable alternative and need not be applied in large quantities. The fats from the meat will soon seep into the pan and provide the ideal base for frying. If cheapo bacon is being used then grilling will at least allow the water and white rubbish to drip off but you should take care to at least double the number of slices planned per person.

A minimum of two slices of bacon should normally be used but three or more are acceptable. Ideally the bacon once fried will have some crispy fat bits and some darker brown areas on the meat itself.

Unlike sausages which benefit from slow cooking, for best effect bacon should be cooked on a highish heat. We are looking for the right combination of softness and crispness and a slow cook will tend to err towards the soft side.

Seasoning

By seasoning I mean red sauce/brown sauce/no sauce. This is entirely a personal choice. The purist will almost certainly opt for “naked” but I am a brown sauce man. HP only. You can tell the difference. Tomato ketchup should be reserved for burgers and hot dogs.

Variety

It is perfectly respectable to experiment with different varieties to accompany the basic bacon filling. Mushrooms (fried) tomatoes (fried or uncooked – as you like) or even lettuce and tomato for the classic BLT are fine with added mayo. Bacon and lettuce without the tomato is a bit weird and should probably be avoided. Other filling combinations may be possible but are straying well away from the pure form. For example bacon and egg sandwiches should better be described as a “breakfast sandwich”.

Vegetarian bacon sandwiches

Nah!

Other bacon sandwich stories

In my experience the bacon sandwich is the one meat dish that is likely to convert vegetarians back to being carnivores (or omnivores/woteva) and I often use this as an icebreaker with people I have never met before but who are introduced to me as vegetarians – maybe at dinner. I tried this last year with a woman and she totally blanked me saying that it was never a problem. Set the tone for the whole evening. I found out weeks later that she was Jewish! Ah well!! A vegetarian friend told me that this conversation piece was as old as the hills and very boring. Ah well!!! Won’t stop me using it though…

Conclusion

So there you have it. The perfect bacon sandwich uses decent dry cured thick cut back bacon, probably sourced from a local butcher and fried. The bread needs to be fresh self sliced crusty white. The bread may be toasted if a couple of days old. The bread should be buttered and contain sensible amounts of HP sauce.

Serve with a fresh pot of tea and a glass of milk.

Mildly interesting Microsoft news on the wireless #Nokia

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 26 April, 2014
No Comments on Mildly interesting Microsoft news on the wireless #Nokia

I know it’s the weekend but there was some mildly interesting technology news on the wireless (Home Programme) with the ratification of the sale of the Nokia mobile phone division to Microsoft.

Microsoft have an uphill battle to catch up with iOS and Android. Although commons sense suggests there has to be room for a third mobile market player my experience with the Nokia Lumia 920 suggests that Microsoft has a huge hill to climb. They lost me.

They also lost my daughter who bought a Chromebook when her windows laptop broke. It fits beautifully with her droid. My wife’s laptop has some adware on it. I suspect they are about to lose her too. It’s far cheaper and easier to buy a new Chromebook. All she needs it for is the occasional document, emails and iPlayer.

These big companies all too easily lose touch with the end user. A couple of years ago I tried to get in touch with someone at Microsoft. Left multiple voicemails and sent multiple emails inviting to person to speak at an industry bash. Not a peep. No acknowledgement. Nothing. These people spend all their time attending corporate meetings to discuss plans, strategies stock option price and bonuses. Useful and important things I guess.

Just spent a couple of nights at the DeVere Wokefield Park for UKNOF28. It was full of corporate types (no idea who they all worked for) wearing near identical suits and some of them, employees of the month no doubt, clutching bottles of cheap champagne. I suppose they could have been Microsoft staff.

Anyway Microsoft have a lot of cash, at the moment. They will spend a large fortune trying to catch up. This cash can easily disappear though especially if their Average Selling Prices have to plummet in an increasingly competitive commodity market.

I think I should stop here. I was only trying to tell you the mildly interesting news about the sale of the Nokia handset business sale to Microsoft. I heard it on the wireless set in the kitchen, on the Home Programme. In case you missed it…

Engineer engineering fun stuff

Hot Air Balloon lands on lawn at DeVere Wokingham Park #uknof28

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 26 April, 2014
No Comments on Hot Air Balloon lands on lawn at DeVere Wokingham Park #uknof28

Those of you who shot off straight after the UKNOF28 meeting missed a sight. It was a hot air balloon landing on the lawn of the hotel. V graceful. I dashed up to the 10th tee to take the vid so that you could share the experience. Good eh? 🙂

No Technology For Old Men

Post author By Marcos Campos
Post date Friday, 25 April, 2014
No Comments on No Technology For Old Men

Lying in bed in a motel room alongside the Mexican border, I was awakened just after midnight by a deadbolt clunk from the room next door. A loud clunk, jarring even though the person behind it was probably trying to be quiet. Fifteen minutes later, that clunk again.

I peer out the window and catch a glimpse of a sturdy looking fellow, wearing a kerchief around his neck.

Truck headlights beam in through the window, and are just as soon gone.

Who makes quick visits at this hour? “Drug deal,” comes straight to my mind (which can be prone to fantasy).

I lay back down and stare at the speckled popcorn ceiling. The carpet in the room is clean and new, though both the pattern and the color are straight out of the 70s, and there’s your typical motel art on the walls. Sleeping here is a form of time travel.

Driving through this desert country, staying in this motel…it all reminds me of the movie “No Country For Old Men”, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. And McCarthy got his descriptions of west Texas just right — romantic and rough (which I can attest to not only because I was raised in the border town of El Paso, but because McCarthy lived a block down from one of my childhood friends). My mind may very well be prone to fantasy, but a childhood friend was shot in a drug deal. Reality and movie fantasy are usually quite different things, but on the border reality can sometimes play like a movie.

I’m on a road trip with my soon-to-be ex-wife, driving a cheap mini van we picked up in Austin for the purpose of transporting three of our dogs to her new home in Mexico. Road trips are one of the things that my wife and I do well together, and we have taken more than a few, but now we’re at the end of a long divorce and a road trip seems a weird thing to do as one of our last married rituals. It’s strange, creating something new while at the same time letting go.

It’s Maya, the Hindu concept of the illusion of reality. Or delusion. We think we are in control, involved and participating, however it is all impermanent…only illusion. I know that’s not the exact definition (though I am not sure there IS an exact definition), however lately that has been my experience of the illusion. I am engaged in the external world, but at the same time I am a distant observer. I am creating the reality, and at the same time I am part of the creation — subject and object at the same time.

Actually, I find my current perception similar to when we come together in software development teams. We create something together, putting a little of ourselves into code and scripts while simultaneously letting go of that creation.

Look…basically I am just a dumb DIY kind of technologist, one without much formal education with which to back up my opinions, and one who sometimes thinks he doesn’t really know what is happening in technology at all. And yet, over and over again, I end up in rooms with Ph.D geniuses, deep into philosophical discussions on the nature of reality that are at the same time all about technology.

While working at IBM in 1997 I learned object-oriented programming by watching an IBM Fellows whiteboard lecture on VHS tape. Then, over the next year while working on frameworks for CORBA, my officemate and I often discussed the nature of reality — all in terms of object-oriented lingo. This colleague’s name was Simon Peter Hemingway (a name I always loved). We would often take long walks and talk about the nature of defining objects, with Simon trying to convince me that reality was an illusion. He held a Ph.D. so he must have known what he was talking about, right?

Last night I popped onto the motel wifi. No password needed. Welcome to the Wild West.

Once online I used my phone to make a Facebook post on a television show…is this what the technology has come down to? I won’t use Twitter because I just don’t see the point, but I use FB to communicate with friends. I’m paranoid about security of the server at work, but I trust my phone’s network access to the unprotected motel wifi. I see news reports that say FB is for old fogies. Maybe I’m too old now for the technology game…maybe I’m blind now to what technology is all about. Or maybe technology is just emerging so quickly into every moment that it all cannot be grasped by our meager minds (prone to fantasy or not).

Before actually starting in my intention was to write about leaving my job with a semiconductor company. Before yesterday — my last day with the company — I created software with a team of people designed to help other engineers design chips. In leaving, I thought I would be able to capture some insights on the Zen concept of letting go. You know, the whole you must empty-you-cup before you can fill-your-cup thing? I have this idea that if we bring mindfulness to our creation of technology that we will somehow create beautiful innovation. Anyway, that’s what I wanted to write about today, the stuff I mean to explore during what I see as a short break from working again on some full-time project somewhere. But then my hotel neighbor clunked his deadbolt, and…

A thread of thought launched…not, not a thread, a stream…like I was dreaming all of this, and I had to get down the raw truth of it before I forgot the elements of the dream.

I suppose I am still processing what it means to leave a project, a team, and a software system. My subconscious is sorting out what it means to leave something into which I’ve poured my heart.

The last scene in “No Country For Old Men”: The Sheriff has a dream in which he sees his father walking ahead, holding an ancient fire. He feels compelled to follow, even though his business on earth is left undone.

Related posts:

Engineer fun stuff

Bed Rooms at the DeVere Wokefield Park #UKNOF28

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 25 April, 2014
No Comments on Bed Rooms at the DeVere Wokefield Park #UKNOF28

I expect the manager at the DeVere Wokefield Park kicks himself (or herself) every time he walks up the stairs in the Mansion House. This is the first sign you see. Took me a couple of days to notice it. Was there for UKNOF28

It would probably ruin the wallpaper if they tried to move the word Bed a little to the right:)

For reference this is how the signs look elsewhere in the hotel.

Net

The Google Blinkers are Coming Off…

Post author By Lindsey Annison
Post date Friday, 25 April, 2014
No Comments on The Google Blinkers are Coming Off…

Despite my overwhelming obsession with broadband campaigning (which has now consumed nearly two decades of my life) I do actually have a real job, one which was the actual cause of me getting involved in broadband in the first place. As one of the first Internet marketers in the world, back in 1995 I was having major problems delivering the services my clients wanted. Not only was I on dial up costing per call (roll on FRIACO), but I also regularly had computers blown up by power surges because of my rural location. and today, little has changed — my productivity is still minimal compared to my capabilities, purely due to the poor quality of my connectivity. I worry less about my connection, though, as the electricity problem has been reduced with surge protectors, UPS, etc., though, and I also no longer want to work every day and night!

Back in ’97, I think, I finally decided to move my site off GeoCities and all the other freebie sites I had created a presence on, and instead get a domain and a single point of presence. One of the discussions in the industry at the time was the importance of having keywords in your domain name. Having had a quite a few clients by that point, though, I already realised that relying on search engines to generate traffic was not the be-all-and-end-all of Internet marketing, and I hated with a vengeance the term “Search engine optimist” and all variants thereof. In fact, just that TLA on its own could set me off. SEO? Pah, don’t you know about webrings, or fora, or bulletin boards, or IRC, or who you can find on ICQ, or how good some of the niche directories are, or.. or…or…

Google, when I began, wasn’t even a gleam in a garage, and there were multiple engines with different ranking algorithms and rules you had to try to satisfy to get decent listings across the many engines to get traffic. I registered WebPR, as I felt that it was all about being open with the public and building relationships. I’m still very happy with my domain, though I no longer use it to get work. (In fact, it is deliberately set up at present to avoid that pain!)

Tags google, internet marketing, seo

broadband Engineer engineering piracy

Broadband traffic management – a thing of the past? #UKNOF28

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 25 April, 2014
5 Comments on Broadband traffic management – a thing of the past? #UKNOF28

Broadband traffic management, once an essential tool in an ISPs toolkit is beinsed less and less as the cost of bandwidth decreases.

Broadband traffic management seems to have been ditched some time ago by the big ISPs. I may be behind the times here. Had a conversation with a couple of senior tech guys at major UK ISPs who told me they had dropped traffic management up to two years ago.

Traffic management at an ISP is basically where the network employs Deep Packet Inspection kit to examine the type of traffic. Bandwidth hogging protocols such as P2P would be throttled at peak times. They did this to save on costs and to improve the experience for other users. A peer to peer protocol will use all the available bandwidth on a broadband line. It only takes a few users to clog up the backhaul of an ISP.

When DPI was originally deployed P2P traffic represented up to 65% of network traffic. DPI equipment was expensive, didn’t scale well and at the higher end of ISP size never provided a return on investment.

Now with the DPI kit switched off the “problem” P2P traffic remains at the same level in real terms but now represents only 4% of total traffic, the majority being video services such as Netflix and YouTube (I assume). One ISP told me that when they switched off traffic management they saw a little blip in traffic volume but it was negligible in the great scheme of things.

This is quite interesting when considered in relation to the “piracy” debate. Although copyright infringing downloads may well be at the same level of a few years ago is it valid to say that people are increasingly resorting to the use of legal/paid for services instead? If so it makes the whole Digital Economy Act farce even more farcial.

Loads of DEAct related posts here if you want to take a look.

H/W internet

Internet Connectivity at DeVere Wokingham Park #UKNOF28 ISDN2

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
1 Comment on Internet Connectivity at DeVere Wokingham Park #UKNOF28 ISDN2

I know I posted earlier in praise of the WiFI connectivity at the DeVere Wokingham Park. Thought I’d show you the kit they threw out before we got here¹. Presumably worried about what we might say. 384kbps wouldn’t have cut the mustard really would it?

¹ I’m not saying how long before we got here 🙂

Engineer fun stuff

#UKNOF28 pre meeting curry

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
No Comments on #UKNOF28 pre meeting curry

Nuff said!

Ever wondered what the translation for Huawei is? #UKNOF28

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
2 Comments on Ever wondered what the translation for Huawei is? #UKNOF28

Huawei is the main sponsor for UKNOF28 in Reading. These are great meetings and couldn’t happen without the support of equipment suppliers to the community.

So at the lunch break we were discussing the Huawei presentation and I wondered what the word Huawei actually meant. Did it have a literal translation?

In a flash I whipped out my trusty droid and clicked on my Google Translate app.

The photos on the right show the process. I typed in “Huawei” and asked Google to translate it from Chinese into English.

Google, being the perceptive creature that it is asked me if I meant 华为 instead?

I suppose I must have meant 华为 so I clicked on it and hey presto Google gave me the answer.

I can definitively (ish) tell you that the translation for Huawei (华为) is, Huawei.

There you go. All part of the trefor.net service.

You heard it first on trefor.net (etc)

Nominet precautions for Nuclear attack on .uk #uknof28

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
No Comments on Nominet precautions for Nuclear attack on .uk #uknof28

Just heard a nice talk by Brett Carr on Nominet’s transformation of its infrastructure. For the lay people amongst you Nominet is the organisation that runs the .uk suffix. All domains ending in .uk. eg trefor.co.uk were I to be the owner, which I’m not because Trefor happens to be a small town in Wales and all place names went very early on in the domain name land grab.

.uk is considered to be a strategic resource for the United Kingdom. The wellbeing of our country depends on it – commerce etc. Nominet therefore has to be run very professionally. Whilst being a not for profit organisation Nominet is well known in the industry for being cash rich and in all fairness donates a lot of its surplus to charity through the Nominet Foundation.

The availability of cash also allows Nominet to use enterprise grade systems in its internal infrastructure. This is different to most of the internet which is run on open source software which by definition is free apart from the cost of support which tends to be managed using internal resources. Nominet’s use of Enterprise grade software is consistent with the strategic nature of its remit.

What is interesting is the extent to which Nominet goes to maintain uptime of its infrastructure. It has two data centres in the UK linked by resilient and diverse 10Gbps connections. Most servers are virtualized using VMware. A problem with one and the system fails over to the other. Problematic resources can be rebuilt very quickly. This is all standard stuff.

The interesting bit is the third data centre in Geneva. In the event of a catastrophic event happening to the UK, and not just to one of the UK data centres, the Geneva DC will continue to work supporting at least some of the .uk functions. We are talking nuclear strike type scenarios here. Data on the infrastructure design and how to rebuild the service is kept in a locked safe “somewhere in the UK” for later recovery.

This did raise a number of questions. If the UK has been hit by nuclear attack who will be left to rebuild the infrastructure? Will anyone care at that point? Where do you buy a nuclear bomb proof safe? The answer to the latter is apparently that there are four nuclear proof locations in the UK. Presumably the safe would be kept there. I dunno.

This post is beginning to drift here but as a kid we lived in the Isle of Man. My dad was the Director of Education there and as such he was guaranteed a place in the IoM government nuclear shelter. The cold war was still going strong during the seventies. Dad told them where they could shove their nuclear shelter. Why would he want to be “safe” inside with his family dying on the outside.

That hopefully is a threat of the past¹. Nuclear bunkers seem to be used as secure data centres nowadays. It is at least good to know that in the event of a nuclear attack your .uk domain name will still work. You now just need to make sure your website is dual homed so that you have something for your domain to point at when the balloon goes up. I recommend Geneva.

Contagious Chromebook Ardor

Post author By Kory Kessel
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
2 Comments on Contagious Chromebook Ardor

Yesterday morning found me doing the usual, staring at my monitor and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, catching up on all of the whats and wheres and whos that took place while I lay me down to sleep. I slid on over to this website to put one last tweak on my piece scheduled to post a couple of hours hence and noticed that Tref has put up not one but two posts featuring Chromebooks, Second Hand HP Chromebook for sale £199.99! and New HP Chromebook for £170 with voucher code save30est. Now being well aware of Tref’s enthusiasm for Chromebook technology, philosophy, and hardware, seeing these two postings didn’t surprise me, but they were enough to give my own somewhat-dormant Chromebook interest a nudge. A nudge that as the day wore on started to feel more and more like a good hard shove.

I bought a Samsung Chromebook when they were first released in the U.S. in November 2012, driven by the same curiosity that pulled me back to Apple in 2008, the sharp design, and the remarkable pricepoint. From the get-go I was delighted with it, too, so much so that I deemed it “KoryChrome” (fellow Paul Simon fans will smile at that), had a protective sleeve made, and declared it good.

KoryChrome 1 And KoryChrome was good. It opened me up to the possibilities of the Chrome operating system, turned my attention to Chrome apps and the Chrome Web Store, provided plenty of configuration itches for me to scratch, and on more than one occasion it helped me out of a business communication bind (with AppleKory, Google Docs + Google Hangout = Beachball). What KoryChrome didn’t do, though, was transform my cyber-life or work practices, and once I figured out how everything worked and had login environments set up for me, My Missus, and The Boy…well, there just wasn’t much use or fun to be had, as all three members of La Famille Kessel have MacBooks that are already quite light and which go mobile with no discernible difficulty. Despite this, though, KoryChrome held its spot in our household for well over a year, until I finally steeled myself up and put it up for sale on eBay this past February. Purchased for $249, sold for $150 just 15 months later, and I got to keep the 100GB of Google Drive storage that came with KoryChrome through to November next. All in all, I dropped $99 to improve my knowledge, increase my marketability, and satisfy my curiosity.

All of which leads me to ask…what is it about the recently-announced Samsung Chromebook 2 that has my eyes lighting up, my fingers tingling, and my thoughts racing to justify making a pre-order in time for one my May visitors from the U.S. to make delivery (got my crosshairs on you, Marcos Campos)? It must be the stitched faux leather finish…yeah, that must be it.

Related posts:

Business internet mobile connectivity

UKNOF 28 wifi at DeVere Wokefield Park

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 24 April, 2014
No Comments on UKNOF 28 wifi at DeVere Wokefield Park

At the DeVere Hotel, Wokefield Park, Reading for UKNOF28 (Google it). The hotel is huge. This does cause a problem. My room is in the Mansion House which is a good half hour walk¹ from the Executive Centre where the meeting is being held.

There has been a slight kerfuffle before the meeting starts as the UKNOF WiFi kit wasn’t exactly late arriving but certainly making the organisers a little nervous. Meetings such as UKNOF, LINX et al need to bring their own kit because that provided but hotels and conference centres is only designed to be used by “normal” people. ie not internet geeks and techies (it would be worth aggregating the home broadband bandwidth use of this community to see how it compares with the average).

You will be pleased to know the kit is now here and an announcement has been made alerting us to a short break in service whilst wires are switched over.

The object of this post however is to praise the WiFi service offered by the DeVere. It has worked brilliantly everywhere in the hotel. I used my mobile VoIP client last night because there is absolutely no mobile signal here. The bandwidth wasn’t perfect for VoIP but I imagine 7pm is pretty much peak time for hotel internet usage as folk get to their rooms, check email etc.

The lack of mobile coverage is an interesting situation for a venue that is filled with suits at corporate offsite meetings. Every open door you pass has a meeting table with overhead projector and people sat around doing stuff. Yesterday the Mansion House bar was filled with besuited-open-necked-shirted-enthusiastic salesmen clutching bottles of champagne awarded to this month’s top performers (etc). Filled me with dread.

As I walked to check out the conference venue yesterday afternoon there was even a bloke sat on his own around some “team building” equipment laid out on the lawn. He was waiting for the punters to turn up. Some time later it was absolutely chucking it down and I saw him packing up the stuff. Presumably his clients had abandoned that part of their offsite meeting and adjourned to the bar. Rain needn’t stop play – just changes the game 🙂

So well done DeVere on your WiFi. The screenshot in the header is the speed I’m getting inside the conference room. Presumably everyone else is now using the UKNOF kit.

More from UKNOF28 as it happens. Read it first on trefor.net 🙂

¹ Ok I’ll admit to a slight exaggeration here but it is a long way.

Bad Stuff End User H/W

Apple, Do Us a Solid

Late one Saturday afternoon in the spring of 2009 I lived out a fantasy, one that I know is shared in one form or another by just about anyone who has ever sat down in front of a computer keyboard. On that unforgettable day I placed a Dell laptop computer that had caused me no small amount of angst, frustration and tsuris (Yiddish word…look it up) under the back left wheel of the car I was driving and repeatedly ran over it until it could be repurposed as a post-modern art installation piece entitled “Android Roadkill”.

True story^*. Ultimate catharsis achieved.

On that glorious sunny day I recall for a scant second trying to imagine putting AppleKory under-wheel in the same manner, and I think I actually shuddered at the thought. I simply could not fathom laying any harm to my beloved MacBook, the first computer with which I had ever felt a sense of affection. To borrow scandalously from “Jerry Macguire”, AppleKory completed me. I had her set up in a way that reflected who I am, the way I work and play, the things I like, my interests, my hobbies, my compulsions, my obsessions, and she made my fingers tingle when I ran them over her chassis. Everything on my AppleKory had to be smart, sharp, efficient, clean, and…perfect.

For my math-challenged readers, 2009 was five years ago. A lot can change in five years.

Two complete system replacements later (as well as a component upgrade on my current AppleKory that for all intents and purposes should be considered a full system replacement), I still get my MacBook with great tenderness whenever I go to to backpack her. Today, however, that is more due to care and concern for my cyber-life than any lingering finger tingle. Not that I would describe her as delicate or fragile. No, from a hardware perspective this AppleKory — my third, a 2011-issue MacBook Pro 13″ — is as sturdy a piece of computer hardware as any I can imagine. I find it fortunate, though, that she spends the vast majority of her time in her now time-worn position at the left of my keyboard and not on the move, because these days from a functionality perspective that ol’ Apple “solid” feel is a growing-more-distant memory.

That Apple “solid” feel. I think more than anything else it is what drew me to make the move back to Apple in 2008, and also what kept me there. And I am not just referring to the build quality (though, that too, yes, yes), but a computer you could actually close the lid on and put into a bag, and then take out of a bag and lift the lid on (lather, rinse, repeat) repeatedly without worrying for a moment about…well, about anything. She’d go to sleep, she would jump straight back out of sleep rarin’ to go, and do it all over and over again (lather, rinse, repeat). WiFi up, connections restored, software still in RAM and ready to resume function. Every time. Every. Time.

At one point not all that long ago I thought that Apple was amiss in not using the following dead-effective — and truthful — advertising slogan to sell their computers: “Apple. It just works.” And though this quality does become assumed over time, I would be willing to wager substantial clams that for anyone who has moved from the wonderful world of Windows into Apple OSX it really is something you never quite take for granted. That said, whereas with Windows I was always pleasantly surprised when things worked as expected, with Apple — fair or not — I am always bitterly disappointed when they do not.

Remember the good ol’ Aughts, when things were so uncomplicated. I wish I could go back there again…and everything would be the same…

I cannot say the love affair is over, but to borrow a favorite idiom: Today the AppleKory that I once thought could do anything and everything often has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. Want to whistle while you work, with a little help from your onboard speakers? Not a problem as long as you don’t mind your tracks skipping with each change in your CPU usage. Like to channel your music through your Hi-fi, system-connected via Apple Express connected to your Wi-Fi? Might work today..might not. Keep more than three tabs open in your browser at any given moment? Beachball. Edit photos in iPhoto with iTunes open at the same time? Beachball. Work in Google Docs while occasionally hopping over to TweetDeck to see what you are (not) missing? Beachball. Copying a file from one system to another with anything else open whatsoever? Beachball. Beachball. Beachball.

A feeble argument can be made — and has been made — for laying AppleKory’s problems at her own feet (whereas Dell Technical Support’s favorite solution has long been “Reinstall Windows.”, Apple’s “Upgrade to a new system.” is far more cheeky and charming, capitalistically speaking). As a Technical Writer, however, with over 20+ years experience in hardware and software (read: born system troubleshooter) I am able to spot a trend, and the abundant evidence shows (and is echoed in copious Googling and Binging search results) that the loss of that Apple “solid” feel is at least as much the fault of Apple’s more recent OSX iterations and their traditionally half-baked software.

With the release of Snow Leopard, the seventh iteration of OSX, instead of the usual New-Feature-This-New-Feature-That Apple impressively went against trend by targeting improved performance, greater resource efficiency, and the reduction of OSX’s memory footprint (and they lowered the price to an unheard-of-at-the-time US$29, too, to increase adoption). I remember being deeply impressed by this tack, and perhaps even more impressed by the Snow Leopard OSX experience. Subsequent iterations, though — Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks — have seen Apple returning to the featuring of features (while trumpeting the stability stuff), and today the company is very much in need of a “Snow Mavericks” release designed to bring back the “solid”. Lest I start daydreaming about taking AppleKory for a ride in my car.

^*In the interest of full transparency I need to mention that the slain Dell computer was at the bottom of a short stack of client-provided laptops that I have used and set aside over the years as each new one came down the pike, one that had lost every shred of possible value save for doorstop (and I have plenty of those). For the ever-curious, the systems that comprise said stack are all EOL (End of Life, and thus not deemed worth the cost of return), not legally mine (which explains why I didn’t eBay ’em and pocket wads of cash), and creaky lame (I am the Jerry Lee Lewis of computer keyboards).

Related posts:

chromebook End User google

New HP Chromebook for £170 with voucher code save30est

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 23 April, 2014
1 Comment on New HP Chromebook for £170 with voucher code save30est

Hot on the heels of my last post about CashConverters trying to sell a second hand HP Chromebook for £200 Gavin Lewandowski dropped me a line on Twitter saying he’d just bought a brand new one for £170 using a voucher code save30est. Link is here though it is likely to be a time limited offer so may not work for very long.

I paid £180 for my Acer 720 from PC World Business. These laptops will keep coming down. They can hardly have any components. Even at the existing prices they are almost disposable. At least if you lose one it isn’t going to break the bank.

I’d buy another one if I didn’t already have two Chromebooks:

Using different Chromebooks for personal and business
Comparison of Samsung and Acer Chromebooks

Business chromebook google H/W

Second Hand HP Chromebook for sale £199.99 !

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 23 April, 2014
3 Comments on Second Hand HP Chromebook for sale £199.99 !

CashConverters in Lincoln are selling a second hand HP Chromebook for £199.99.

Caught my eye in the window as I was walking home from work yesterday. Second hand Chromebook for two hundred quid?! When you consider that I paid £180 in VAT for the Acer Chromebook I’m using to type this post makes you wonder how clued up the management at CashConverters are about this sort of thing.

I suppose they are offering easy terms.

Business fun stuff

Buyer beware – 50% off kids at Easter

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 23 April, 2014
No Comments on Buyer beware – 50% off kids at Easter

50% off kids at Easter! Sound too good to be true? You can bet your bottom dollar it is.

Take it from me. 50% off might sound like a good deal but get those kids home and the magic will soon wear off. They will want feeding, clothing, educating etc etc etc. That 50% will soon be a drop in the ocean compared with the ongoing maintenance and operational expenses.

Sure there are consolations. Fathers’ Day cards, new pairs of socks at Christmas. Nobody is going to turn those away. But before you buy take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what you see in front of you. If you want to see your whole head and shoulders then don’t take them up on the 50% offer because pretty soon that mirror will need lowering so that the kids can see themselves in it before heading off to school. Brush their hair, adjust school uniform…

50% off kids at Easter? Buyer beware:)

Easter bunny – one for the ladies
As sure as chocolate eggs is chocolate eggs

End User phones

How to avoid twitter spam from O2

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 23 April, 2014
3 Comments on How to avoid twitter spam from O2


O2 are encouraging you to sign up for spam tweets. The above promoted tweet might seem innocuous enough. Chance to win a super new HTC One M8. Good stuff.
However buyer beware. Once signed up I can't see how there can be an unsubscribe mechanism. O2 are hardly going to waste some of their 140 characters with a message on how to unsubscribe. Unless it's basically a simple unfollow. It's not clear. I'm not going to follow the link on the off chance of finding out.
There is also a basic problem with this whole concept. People don't regularly look for mobile deals and offers. They sign up for a contract and then forget it until the 18 or 24 months is up and then they look again. Am I wrong?
The way to avoid all this is to ignore the tweet.
PS Does win "an HTC" sound right? Win "a HTC" surely.





	


	

		
			
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			Broadband funding
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Lindsey Annison						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Tuesday, 22 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
							4 Comments on Broadband funding						
					
					
			


		


		
	




	

		

			
		


	


	
	

		

			Broadband funding for rural broadband projects is not working that well says Lindsey Annison.
Recently, I was part of a very interesting discussion on TechQT about funding broadband, particularly for areas where there has been (or where it is perceived that there will be) a level of failure in the superfast roll-out.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHGptEl6_D0]
Whilst many will argue that both the commercial deployment and that associated with the BDUK funding are still ‘in progress’ (and, hence, this discussion could be deemed to be premature), it is already becoming clear that there will be a shortfall not only in coverage percentages and the tech being used (FTTC or worse, instead of full-blown, full-fat FTTH or FTTP),  but also in availability even where the area has been deemed covered.
What will people do in areas where the superfast solution is not being deployed? Or in areas where FTTC simply will not technically work? Or in areas which appear to have been forgotten or ignored? 
Continue reading “Broadband funding”

		


	


	
		
		

			

									
						
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			Sandy, Baby, Our Two Worlds Will Be One
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Kory Kessel						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Tuesday, 22 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
							No Comments on Sandy, Baby, Our Two Worlds Will Be One						
					
					
			


		


		
	




	

		

			Anyone who has ever spent more than 5 consecutive minutes using a Windows PC knows well the hourglass, that ubiquitous symbol that the cursor morphs into when the system is processing and cannot take further input. Users of PCs loaded with various other operating systems know the hourglass, too (a buncha different flavors of UNIX, for example), though they encounter it far less often. Annoying when it lingers on-screen for more than just a second or two, the hourglass does offer a sensical message, that being that some time will need to pass before you cursor changes back to an arrow and your system is usable once again.

The Apple Mac operating system — though UNIX-based — does not display an hourglass in place of the cursor when it needs time to catch up with the user. No, what OSX offers is a spinning beachball (or, as perceived by some, a pinwheel), which is a lot more fun than a staid old hourglass! Beachballs are found…at the beach! Thus, a delay in system reponsiveness is to be regarded not as a period of necessary waiting but as an opportunity for colorful fun! Beach = fun! And therein lies a clear view into the mindset of Apple versus all of the other schmoes out there looking to drive your personal computing experience.




Windows, UNIX flavors:

“Yeah, we know this is taking up some of your valuable time.”



Apple OSX

“It isn’t our fault if you cannot see the fun in this delay.”







Goofy grins and ability to have fun aside, when I inched my way back to an Apple computer in March of 2008 I did not see many beachballs. Sure, they would pop into view from time to time, but they were colorful (hourglasses, at that time at least, came only in black and white) and just when you found yourself noticing them they were gone. “How pleasant.”, I found myself thinking. “Not at all what I am used to!” 
Continue reading “Sandy, Baby, Our Two Worlds Will Be One”

		


	


	
		
	


	




	


	

		
			
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			Reality is a concrete slab off eBay
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Trefor Davies						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Monday, 21 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
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			I ordered some concrete slabs off the internet. Bought them on eBay actually. 21 off 600 x 600mm for £57. Had I bought them from a shed they would have been something like £120. They are going to form the base for the playhouse that I’m converting into a shed. We are using the patio where the playhouse currently stands as the new basketball court. As it happens the slabs came from under a deck so it would seem that they are eminently suitable for their new purpose.
I collected them from somewhere in Lincoln. Before setting off I looked up the address on Google Maps and even saw the house on Streetview. V useful. When I got there I had to reverse down a very narrow drive and in the end was only able to shift half of them. They are so heavy I didn’t want to risk knackering the Jeep’s suspension. Going to have to go back and get the others another time.
It seems strange in a world where we live a “virtual” life on the internet that there are actually solid items such as these concrete slabs that intrude on our everyday existence. It’s called reality. I looked it up on Wikipedia: “the state of things as they actually exist rather than as they appear or are imagined”.
Concrete slabs apart we shouldn’t forget that reality is generally much better than the virtual world. It’s a perfect spring day out there – get out and enjoy it:)

		


	


	
		
	


	




	


	

		
			
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			Creative pics with panorama function on Galaxy S4
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Trefor Davies						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Monday, 21 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
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			Only just realised you can take some spectacular pics with the panorama function on the phone. The first is a bog std panorama of the departures board at Victoria station. Uses landscape format panned sideways. No particular surprises apart from the occasional train leaving on time.
The next photos were taken in the vicinity of Victoria but using a landscape format in a vertical panorama. Allows you to take much bigger canvases.

This is what a std panorama looks like of that scene (ish).


 

Other panorama images:

Peel

IoM ferry

		


	


	
		
	


	




	


	

		
			
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					agricultural fun stuff Weekend				

			


			Saturday Snapshot (19-April-2014)
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Kory Kessel						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Sunday, 20 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
							2 Comments on Saturday Snapshot (19-April-2014)						
					
					
			


		


		
	




	

		

			A few months back my brother-in-law (heretofore referred to as BiLly) treated me to lunch at a new Yannick Alléno resto in Paris called Terroir Parisien, located in the Palais Brongniart near Bourse. There we enjoyed a deeply satisfying meal, sampling from a menu that features stalwart Bistro dishes made new with the help of a pinch of little-here-little-there creative tweaking (i.e., Pot au Feu, Boudin Noir). Having indulged previously, my BiLly suggested — well, insisted — that as a starter I take the Champignons rosés de Chez Spinelli à la Fleur de Sel (a long fancy French way of saying “Crazy-fresh cremini button mushrooms produced by the renowned grower Spinelli, served with flaked sea salt”), and having no reason whatsoever to doubt the temerity of his urging I did just that. Uh..oh yes..YES, a point — no, two points — for BiLly.
Some weeks pass, and on a recent Friday night my BiLly’s wife and mine (sisters) found occasion to put a couples dinner on the calendar (with one of my lovely nieces included). My Missus had not yet experienced Terroir Parisien, so a booking was made and a table soon occupied. Menus passed around, experiences recounted, and soon enough My Missus was ordering…yep, those mushrooms (wanting to explore the menu a step furher I didn’t go again for the dish, somewhat to my regret). Lots of “Mmmmm!” and wide-open-eyed happiness, and then the “We should do this at home.” The 5-ingredient roster was no secret — so-fresh-they-snap-between-your-teeth Cremini mushrooms, flaked sea salt, hazelnut oil, faiselle (cottage cheese, or close enough anyway), ciboulette (chive) — and the presentation was right there before us. So why not?
In this space on 6-April I waxed on (and on) about the Orbec mushrooms we strive to lay hands on at the Lisieux Saturday morning farmer’s market whenever we are passing time at the La Famille Kessel Normandy hovel, and these we knew would do nicely. The salt, the oil, the cheese..check, check, check. And the ciboulette grows wild in the garden.
So here is where my narrative will take on the air of recounted recipe, playing — I can only hope — to my technical writing strengths (save for citing amounts as my experience may not be yours, hungry read, and hinges on how many salivating maws you are looking to sate).
Kory on the clock. Knife in hand. Lunch won’t wait.

First, I washed and trimmed the Orbecs, taking care not only to rid the marvelous mushrooms of any adherring sand but also cutting enough of the stem away to ensure that the only “woody” evoked was in their flavor. Following that, I carefully cut the Orbecs in a vertical slice (think top of button down to end of stem) at 1/8th inch thickness. Next, I arranged the slices on 5 plates (5 people) in a symmetrical spiral — for anyone out there following along, feel free to express your creativity in how you arrange your mushrooms…this ain’t “My way or the highway” territory — and moved on to the faiselle.
Methinks it is within the faiselle that the trick of Champignons rosés de Orbec à la Fleur de Sel lies. Taking a small bowl in one hand and a fork in the other, I mixed flaked sea salt into the faiselle, test-tasting it until…until…well, until I liked the the taste. I set the mixture aside.
Next, I poured the hazelnut oil into a small container into which I could easily dip a teaspoon. Set that aside too.
Cleaned and minced the fresh ciboulette and set that aside.
Now my mise en place was finished and I as ready to construct the dish. In order: (1) Used a fork to artistically flick small dollops of the faiselle onto the mushroomed plates, (2) Used a teaspoon to drizzle hazelnut oil onto the faiselle-laden mushroomed plates, and (3) Used my fingers to rain pinches of the minced ciboulette onto the oil-drizzled and faiselle-laden mushroomed plates.

And that’s that. I yelled “À table!” to assemble our running band of eaters, sliced up a crusty Boule, and braced myself for the “Mmmmm!”
Related posts:

Saturday Snapshot (12-April-2014)
Saturday Snapshot (5-April-2014)
 Christmas shopping was never fun


		


	


	
		
	


	




	


	

		
			
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					fun stuff Weekend				

			


			Typical British Bank Holiday weather & lazy Sunday mornings #oliveoil #pirateflag
		

			

									
						
							Post author
													
						
							By Trefor Davies						
					
										
						
							Post date
													
						
							Sunday, 20 April, 2014
						
					
										
						
													
						
							2 Comments on Typical British Bank Holiday weather & lazy Sunday mornings #oliveoil #pirateflag						
					
					
			


		


		
	




	

		

			Easy on Sunday morning…
We are back to typical British Bank Holiday weather today. It’s ok. I’ve done (ish) all my outdoor jobs for the moment. The sky has darkened and the wind is getting up.
I will have to do the blokey thing and go out to man the bbq at tea time but the bbq has a lid on it and I will have a beer in hand so all possible weather counter measures will in place. The beer won’t protect me from the rain but ensuring I get just as wet on the inside as on the outside seems to negate the effects.
The house is quiet. Although it serves as a shelter to kids 3 & 4 they are past the age of rushing down excitedly to start shovelling Easter eggs down the hatch. Classic FM is on the wireless. The world is at peace.
The photo shows some condiments procured last week on the Isle of Man. Basil infused olive oil and two vinegars: tomato and blood orange. The latter is particularly fine and doesn’t need to be accompanied by oil. A nice bit of organic bread to soak it up from the plate is just the job.
The rain is now coming down in earnest. It’s very relaxing hearing it on the conservatory roof. There are roses and lillies in the conservatory. The rain doesn’t stop the birds. I can hear them singing away. Probably sat on a branch in a bit of shelter chatting to each other – about the weather. It’s not only us humans who do that sort of thing.
Scattered around me are various musical instruments. The conservatory does get a reasonable amount of use all year round and tomorrow hopefully the rain will have moved on and we can have the doors open to the garden. We have people coming to lunch. Another bbq.
Still the rain comes down. It sends a shiver of relaxation through my spine. I’ll have to get showered and dressed soon. When Mrs Davies comes back from her dose of religion I am on chauffeur duties taking her and her pal to a craft fair in Doddington Hall. Ordinarily Anne would drive but Kid2 has taken her car to Pontefract for a weekend doing whatever they do in that part of the world. Look it up on tripadvisor. It will quite possibly identify the only attraction as Pontefract Racecourse. I haven’t looked myself.
Nothing wrong with the races but they do expect you to go home at some point so Kid2 have had to find other diversions to keep herself busy. Probably involves a pub.
Over the fence in the allotments I can see a Lincolnshire flag looking sorry for itself. I must get our camping flagpole out. Keep thinking of doing it. We have a pirate flag and the national flag of Mexico purchased at the football in Cardiff during the Olympics. You know it makes sense. I can tie them both on. That way I’ll always be able to find out house amongst all the others, assuming I’ve forgotten our address and what the house looks like.
I don’t really do craft fairs meself so I will either sit in the caff watching the world go by or nip somewhere else. It’s an adventure. Big pic below is of the oils and vinegars for sale in industrial quantities at Tynwald Mills in the Isle of Man.
Other oil related posts: BP oilspill area superimposed onto map of UK


		


	


	
		
	


	


	
	

		

		
	
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