IRLP
This is an early image of the amateur radio IRLP station that Roger G3PVU and I are making. It will be located near Lincoln city center and be available on the 70cms repeater GB3LS.
Lightweight Camping
I took a few days off from work this week to try out some of my light weight kit – which eventually will make up the kit I will use on future backpacking trips.
Although I had the car I limited what I took. It gave me a chance to try the tent, food ideas and stoves I plan to use. I probably will not be carrying the folding stool on my backpacking trips.
The tent is a bit heavy for backpacking – but at £17.50 in a sale the price was right. It weighed 2.5kgs but by changing the steel pegs with titanium ones and not using the stuff sacks the weight drops to under 2kgs. It is also large enough for two (at a squeeze with rucksacks) but for one it gives that extra bit of space and comfort. I can sit up in it and cook outside the door easily or look at view whilst drinking tea. The window panels in the fly sheet doors adds some weight but this allows you to look out at the view even when it is raining!
I camped at the Camping and Caravan Club site on the outskirts of Scarborough. It is well placed so I could just walk out to the cliff top footpath, without having to use the car.
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Probably the Best Server Backup in the World
Last Christmas we had a real problem recovering a server, following a serious crash. Although we had a series of tape backup, using only the best quality tape, a Sony tape drive and BackupExec, when we came to move the tape drive to a new server to recover the all important data we could not find a driver for the drive. Neither the native drivers or the BackupExec driver would work. The skills of one of my engineers saved the day with the use of a PE type boot CD in the failed server with allowed him to access the one of the raided drives and copy the data to a USB portable hard drive.
So we have been looking for a better solution.
In conjunction with Basic Business Systems (http://www.basic.co.uk/) with now use CA ARCserve D2D for backing up servers, first to NAS devices and then we copy this to either USB protable HDD or across the internet to remote storage. Backing up is fine – but the real strength is its speed of recovery. The Bear Metal Recovery simply speeds up the time to recover a server. It is also practical to test the recovery process and several of our clients who are now using this software are going to have a Disaster Recovery practice – we will go in on a Saturday with a spare black server, turn off the working box and recover ti to the spare using only the D2D files. If it works great, but if we do have any issues we will be able to solve them, whennot under pressure of a real crash.
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GB3LM – Lincoln Cathedral
The Lincoln Shortwave Club maintain a set of amateur radio repeaters that are located on the highest point of Lincoln Cathedral. It is a good position for the antennas.
It is a great view.
On this day we were undertaking some maintenance on the Cathedral’s internal radio system and we had to go inside the roof section of the high tower. This gave a different view of the bell that chimes on the quarter hours, Great Tom. When it chimes and you are inside the roof it is very loud.
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Spring Time in Brighouse
I have been working in Brighouse this week, upgrading a client’s network, reconfiguring Outlook to work from a remote site to an Exchange server, installing NAS storage and setting up terminal services for the reception staff. It has been a rushed job to address some of the limitations the company met when trying to run the factory production via terminal services – I came up with the solution at the end of one week and was there for 6.45am on the Monday to make the changes. Some problems with availability of software and hardware deliveries meant that it was an early finish on Monday, with a stay overnight in Brighouse to complete the job on Tuesday.
I stayed at the Waterfront Lodge in the centre of Brighouse, which is located next to the canal. As the weather was fine I had a good walk up and down the canal which included a visit to “Brighouse Marina”, (I could not find the Geocache hidden at the Marina, too many muggles). I managed to fit the walk in during the sunny break between showers. The canal walk is a real gem, giving a green corridor through the town.
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Pulp Fiction
It was my Dad who first introduced me to Science Fiction, lending me books he had got from the library – in particular he introduced me to the likes of Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Boroughs and EE “Doc” Smith and I developed a taste for the big space opera and pulp fiction sci-fi story.
Today with the internet I consume vast amounts of material, listening to StarShipSofa and Escape Pod and reading stories from a large number of sites including Project Gutenberg where much of the 1930s and 1940s pulp fiction is ending up.
I was looking for a few cover images to add to my Calibre Library when I came across this site – http://www.philsp.com/ – all you ever wanted to know about Pulp Fiction Magazines including a vast collection of covers. Now when I was looking for a book I would always be attracted to book with the exciting laser beam weilding space suited hero and heroine rather then the series all yellow covered book – I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but that saying was only thought up by boring do gooders, give me crashing spaceships and dinosaurs any day.
Have a look on the site above there are some real classic covers.
Kellokult – iPhone Skin
Isn’t Google great – I was looking for one thing and I found this – from Kellokult.
I have always wanted a Leica camera and now if I can find a supplier in the UK I might get one!
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