Week of 5th July, 2004

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Monday, 5th July

10 o'clock shift starts today, running the ingest system. But only for 2 days - I've got the rest of the fortnight off, for Sarah's Graduation.

But first, I have to pack up more goodies at the flat.

Work today was steady, not too busy - it's the summer, dontcha know. Only about 30 commercials, 60-odd promos, and a few long form programmes - most of which were done by the time I left. There's enough still there to keep me occupied tomorrow, until the next deliveries.

Building works continue apace. Bits of floor and wall disappear, other bits appear, and suites of equipment bays are breeding like rabbits. The current plan is to move the Archive system on Friday, which will involve a complete shutdown. I just hope it all starts up again after the move.

Since I got the Psion 5MX, I've been looking for mapping and route planning software for it. Palmtop bv. in Holland used to do an application called Route Planner, but they dropped it about the time they relaunched themselves as Tom Tom. Research yesterday turned up Octopus Systems, whose website offers second-hand copies of Route Planner, and it's companion Street Planner. So I 'phoned them, and they have the apps. in stock, as described, and are willing to sell me copies, against a cheque - they no take plastic money. I've written a covering letter (on the Psion). Now to post it.

Of course, the maps are way too large for a stock Psion (even the 5MX, with 16MB of memory), but the salesman confirmed that the Psion accepts Compact Flash Type 1 cards - he has personal experience of using a 256MB card in his 5MX - and recommended Expansys as a source. I've ordered a 256MB card, specified as "must work with Psion 5MX" - UKP23 plus postage, which is remarkable. I'll need more memory cards later - for the moment that 256MB CF card is enough, but soon I'll need another 128MB (or more) of SD card, another 256MB of CF for the Nikon, and a 128MB SM card or two for the Fuji digicams. Plus possibly a USB thumbdrive.

Talking of the Psion 5, getting PsiWin to connect reliably is a bit of a saga. The only reliable way for me is to use infrared, and the Psion and the computer must see one another directly - the Palm will work by bouncing the infrared beam off the wall behind Antbear, the Psion needs direct line-of-sight, albeit oblique. Cable connection does not work, in my environment - I think there are too many programmes fighting over that serial port. There's Nokia Connection Manager, PsiWin, and the Paperport scanner, not to mention Palm Desktop, if running. At least Palm Desktop has the grace to not try to grab the serial port when it isn't running - that's not it's default behaviour, by the way.

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Tuesday, 6th July

More of the same at work - I left two 15 minute home shopping infomercials for the other shift. All else that is available is done.

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Wednesday, 7th July

Jane wants tickets for the BBC Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall ordered - about 10 concerts, 4 tickets each. That's going to be over UKP200 in admission charges, but it's good to see family going to quality music events. The Proms are, of course, an institution. Originally started by the conductor Sir Henry Wood, initially at the Queen's Hall, each year's concert season was (and still is) intended as a feast of affordable music. This is the 110th celebration of the tradition, now under the management and inprimatur of the BBC, who have broadcast every concert for longer than I can remember.

Of course, no-one else wants to sit down to do the ordering of tickets over the Internet, and Jane doesn't understand these things, so yours truly draws the short straw. I have a list of concerts, and instructions to order 'restricted view' seats - after all, you don't really need to see the orchestra. I'm going to pass on actual attendance, but I'll be there by proxy - courtesy of BBC Radio 3.

Equally as usual, Jane virtually ordered me to do this just as I was getting ready to leave for Wales. Nuts to that, I'll do it by dial-up from the flat, using the other account.

And the trip was horrendous - not the weather (although there was some rain) but a massive traffic jam near Membury service area, and another between Junctions 15 and 16. I got stuck in the first one, for about an hour and a half, but during the holdup I got chatting by radio, and managed to avoid the other jam by taking back roads.

The CompactFlash card for the Psion arrived this morning, and works, which is good. Then I had a brainstorm - if this card fits, maybe the others (the ones appertaining to the Nikon Digicam) will as well. So I checked, and they do. Which suggests that all CF memory cards are the thinner Type I, while the thicker Type II cards are used for input/output or rotating storage (i.e. MicroDrive) Incidentally, the card was billed as Expansys' own brand, but it's an Integral.

The local Makro cash-and-carry trade store (membership required) advertised a package of HP Ipaq H1930, with Kirrio GPS and mapping software for UKP230 plus VAT, in their mailing of offers starting today. This is enough cheaper than other sources that it's worth trying for, so I did. And they were sold out - after 4 hours! Not many supplied, apparently, and no news on futher availability. That's the problem with Makro - you need to know your prices (other sources can be cheaper) and the real bargains are sometimes in short supply.

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Thursday, 8th July

Off to the Maplin shop, up in the Enterprise Zone, this morning, to try and get some bits. I want to fix the GPS mount somewhere near my eyeline when I'm driving, and the best place for that, as far as I can see, is just to the left of the steering column, on a bit of dashboard beside the ashtray. But to do that, I need a spacer to move the bracket out from the panel by about an inch, so that the bracket doesn't foul on a protruding shelf a bit higher up. A plastic box a couple of inches square will do it, and Maplin has them.

Then, after some food shopping and a rain shower, I tried to fit the bracket, with the spacer box. And it doesn't work - I can't mount the bracket far enough away from the dash to get the angle right, without fouling the direction indicator stalk, or other controls if I mount it higher. Back to the drawing board.

Tonight I finally got a round tuit and booked the Proms tickets. And it was a painful experience in more ways than one. First, of course, the cost: UKP125 for 4 tickets for each of 6 concerts - restricted view, at that. But over and above that, the Royal Albert Hall ticket booking site is loaded with javascript and is graphics heavy - it's painfully slow over a 33k6 dialup (actually 28k8 tonight) and they give you 20 minutes to buy the tickets after you've reserved them, albeit the 20 minute timer is reset every time you choose more tickets. And on the payment page, you have to specifically click on a "I accept the Terms and Conditions" checkbox before you can submit your payment. If you do not so click, the offer to pay is rejected, so why not say "Clicking 'Buy' accepts the Terms and Conditions. See them here". No doubt there's a clause in the relevant law (printed in Flyspeck 3, of course) which requires active acknowledgement. I did note that they ask if they can send marketing bumph, and the relevant checkboxes default to 'off', which is, I believe, a requirement of current UK law.

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Friday, 9th July

The trip to Bangor is going to be fun. The last time I tried to drive from south to north I chose the coast road, past Aberystwyth, and it took 6 hours, even though it's only 160-odd miles - the roads are not good. This time I'm going to try cross-country, via Builth Wells and Welshpool. I know the roads as far as Pool - having holidayed in the area, and as far as Oswestry from a return to London, but beyond that is new to me. So besides the map book, I want a tracking map. The only one I have is in the Psion 3 - M$ Autoroute Express, dated 1995, plus an add-on called AutoGPS, which will read an NMEA stream from an attached GPS and control the Autoroute cursor. All this works, I've used it before, but I need to be able to keep the Psion alive for at least 4 hours, which means powering it from the car - 9 volts regulated, so I need a cigarette lighter adaptor that will supply 9 volts at about 100mA (or probably less - the Psion 3A mains brick is rated at 250mA, but the power consumption display in the Psion menus says 50-odd mA)

That adaptor took a bit of finding - Maplin didn't have any stock, so I finally tracked one down in Swansea Market. And it works, the Psion will take external power from it.

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Saturday, 10th July

Jane 'phoned to ask me to do a little shopping for the trip - basic necessities, although since I'm not going until tomorrow she will bring bread and butter.

Later: She apparently left about 1 p.m or so, and got as far as Leamington Spa before there was a problem with Hopalong - he was "swaying" - which we eventually traced to loose wheel nuts on a rear wheel, one of which had sheared - which problem we have seen before, in Spain. Luckily, after that incident, Jane carries spare wheel nuts.

7 p.m. They have arrived safely.

Meanwhile, I've been packing crockery, and washing clothes. I'll sort out the GPS bracket tomorrow morning, before I leave. I have a new plan, not very cunning, but I have hopes.

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Sunday, 11th July

The drive to Bangor was easy enough,albeit long - about 5 hours for the 180-odd miles (I missed a turning, which resulted in a 20 mile detour)

It was a slow start, though. After I'd mounted the GPS bracket - on the ashtray, slightly pulled open, which was the cunning plan - I tried to start up the Psion 3 to read the NMEA stream from the GPS, and display a map. Well, that bit worked, but the 2 output cigarette lighter splitter didn't - only one output. So I had to stop at a service area to find another one, which didn't make good contact - cigarette adaptors are notorious for this. There is no standard - outside diameters of the "plug" range from about 18 mm to about 23 mm, or so. So if you get a small plug in a large socket it doesn't stay in, leave alone make good contact.

I ended up daisychaining the old and new adaptors, which worked. All these bits ended up in Ally's front passenger footwell, with the Psion on the seat beside me. But the screen is too small, and I can't have the map book open as well. So I gave up on tracking map. Which probably led me to miss the turning, as above.

Wne I finally arrived, the cottage is tiny - one room up, one room down. Upstairs is the bedroom - a double bed, and two singles partially hidden behind cupboards. Downstairs is the living/dining/kitchen area, with a shower room and toilet behind a sliding door next to the front door. Lovely views over the valley, and lots of livestock - mostly woolly jumpers (sheep) but the neighbour keeps chickens and we saw a cow just the other side of the garden fence.

The evening meal was a dine-out Chinese at a restaurant in Bangor. Very good, too. And I was treated to what was to become the refrain of the trip - Katy: "Can I drive?"
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