General

Asus EEE – Glad I Packed It

/ General

I hadn’t planned to bring the Asus EEE on holiday – but at the last moment I threw it in the boot of the car (and as it is solid state I could throw it).

I do push my PDA to the limits and expect it to perform as a laptop but there are a few things it cannot do which the Asus can do when connected to the internet.

For the first thing I have been able to post to this blog – there is PDA interface to post to WordPress but it is limited – but using the Asus I have been able to post with images and manage my site, (I was planning to post my Coast to Coast Experience but the holiday seems to have got in the way of that happening – you will have to wait for that a little longer.)

The other thing I have been using our timeshare wifi for is posting images to my Flickr pages – www.clivecatton.co.uk – something that I get round to all to infrequently, I still have images from the top of Ben Nevis from last summer that I still want to post – this year the pictures are up there.

Anyway we are off camping again tomorrow so the Asus will go back in its padded backpack (Tamrac Travel Pack 71 – free with my Amateur Photographer subscription) and go back in the boot.

A client of mine is giving the Asus a real travel try out – he is having a months holiday in Australia and asked me to spec him a laptop for the journey so he could keep up with email and stuff for his business whilst away – as well as using it for Skype, editing the digital photos and other computer chores. I suggested the Asus – and when he returns I’ll tell you how he got on with it.

I sorted out several other hi-tech things he needed, he already had a Pocket PC for carrying his Outlook etc with him – we suggested and configured that for him. I configured a memory stick for use in a Windows PC with Portable Apps – but also as a storage device of essential documents which can be used in Asus under Linux. I backed his Outlook PST file this stick and uploaded the data to the Essential PIM Portable Application, loaded on the stick – plug the stick into a Windows PC to access your Outlook data whilst on the road. He also took an 8gig stick with him as a backup device for digital photos.

Business and personal “on the road computing” is something that I specialise in at Octagon Technology – and is something I enjoy setting up and using – it is also a good excuse to upgrade my kit on a regular basis!

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Elgin Cathedral

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We went to Elgin today – to see Elgin Cathedral. Diana had been there when she was six or seven and had been very impressed by it, so we were going back to have a look.

As we entered the town there was a sign saying it was an “Historic Cathedral Town” – and that was the the only sign we could see for the Cathedral. We parked and tried to find the Tourist Information – there was a sign for that and we followed it, but we could not find the Tourist Information. There were a number of information sign posts – showing where the post office, town centre and other things were but no Cathedral sign.

So out with the PDA, Memory-Map and the GPS unit – the cathedral was marked on the OS map and the GPS took us there. (See here for my mobile tech kit.)

There was sign for the cathedral which we found eventually, and if we had been coming in from the other side of the town we would have seen it – of course we would have seen it if we had given up, got the car and left Elgin to go to Aberdeen instead – as we were leaving the town!

Come Elgin council get your act together – it cannot be hard to put a few signs up – where the tourists can see them.

The Cathedral was impressive – we shall go back next year and have a good look round. The Biblical Gardens next door to the cathedral were excellent and well worth visiting Elgin for on there own.

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Holidays

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So we have been away for a week – and we have had some great weather and very bad weather. Put the tent up in the rain, took it down in the rain, put it up in the rain and took it down again in the rain. But we are now here at our timeshare in Aviemore – where it does not matter if it rains. But of course it is nice weather.

Something new at the timeshare this year is we have secure wireless internet in the house. No more looking for coffee shops with wifi or going to McDonalds or Starbucks, we now have it in the comfort of our house – so watch out for posts each night. I have my Coast to Coast Experiences to post as well as uploads to Flickr as I go.

Glad I decided the Asus EEE at the last moment – so I can make use of the wifi.

Anyway check out www.clivecatton.co.uk for new pictures.

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Posting from my PDA

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On looking on the forums, I was disapponted to find that I cannot post by email to a blog on WordPress.com – this is something RKW Internet has added to our company, WordPress, website using Postie (if you need to do this for a custom install of WordPress go to the WordCampUK 2008 Wiki where you will find his instructions).

Further investigation led me to the url http://m.wordpress.com. Try the link it is a very thin client for WordPress.com bloging,suitable for small devices or even quick blogs from a computer.

My PDA has wifi so this post is being made from it. It is enough to get words out here quickly but I cannot include an image.

I have a Flickr account and have found some other information about post to your blog via that using email – I hope to get to grips with that before I go to Scotland, so I can photo blog from my Blackberry.

A short post tonight – but I am inspired by my experience at WordCampUK to publish a worthwhile blog over the coming months. I have a holiday coming up soon expect blogs then. I have also been writing about my Wainwright Coast to Coast experince and expect those to be posted in the coming weeks. I also want to share some of mobile tech experience.

So the first moblog experience I will share is this from my PDA – I’ll review it when I see the post on my laptop.

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MoBlog – WordCampUK

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I work in technology and system support and run Octagon Technology a company based in Lincoln. Our website www.octagontech.com is based on WordPress and was developed by Richard at R K W Internet.

I went to WordCampUK2008 in Birmingham to support Richard who presented two sessions to the conference – and this has inspired me to start a personal blog. I have used the blog on the company website to document walking the Coast to Coast footpath with friends – and want to carry on but the company blog is not the place to continue. WordCampUK2008 has inspired me to start my own.

I am interested in mobile computing and have had a wide range of PDAs over the years and it was whilst walking with Richard, practising for the Coast to Coast walk that we decided to moblog the walk with photos from our mobile phones. I am pleased to say that Richard sorted the technology and the results are here.

This blog is going to be about using mobile technology, walking, photography and other stuff. For it to be mobile technology it should be able to be carried in a pocket – it could be a large pocket!

Another thing that has motivated me to start this blog was whilst at WordCampUK2008, I was browsing on my PDA I found this link and I am going to use that page to update my blog on road.

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