I am on holiday at this moment, in Aviemore, Scotland – so it is a good time for me to get this blog going. I thought I would walk in to the village and get some breakfast, went to one cafe where after ten minutes they had not taken my order – even though the place was less than half full and two of the staff had time to discuss their activities from the night before. I am not even sure they knew I had left or not been served.
I then went to “The Coffee Pot” it is the last shop of the block where the Post Office is, heading out of town. I went there last summer and it was good and it did not disappoint today. It is a clean, smart, traditional British cafe with a coal stove to keep the customers warm. They have a short menu done well, some homemade items, a barista so you can get a coffee and the tea comes in pots. I had a breakfast roll, runny fried egg and black pudding and a pot of tea and got change from £5.
Didn’t realise whilst I was there that they had free wifi.
An excellent place – give Aviemore’s trendy cafes a miss and visit “The Coffee Pot”. Couldn’t find a web site for them but they are on facebook.
Once upon a time I didn’t worry how much weight I carried when out in the hills, now every gram counts. However I also enjoy a stop and a fresh hot drink and may be some hot food when walking and so I bought a Crusader brew kit – an excellent bit of kit, but heavy and lacking a proper lid (you cannot count the plastic drinking lid as it cannot reliably be used for cooking). A friend of mine who runs an engineering and maintenance company (The Little Frog Group) made me an aluminium lid for the Crusader mug. Two things the lid helps with, it shortens boiling times and it stops debris falling into the pot – a hazard when trying to shelter the mug and stove from the wind.
This got me thinking to make an even lighter brew kit. I have a Titanium stove and an MSR titanium mug which could be used as cooking pot. So once again The Little Frog Group made another lid, this time for the Ti mug.
One of the great things about the Vargo Triad XE Titanium Stove i that it can be used with meths or solid fuel tablets – but the problem with the solid fuel is that it leaves a residue on the outside of the pot. So if I used my mug as the kettle with solid fuel then it is probable that the smoke would taint the mug making it unpleasant to drink from. In my camp kit I had a beaker with a lid which fits nearly exactly into the mug and makes a reasonable cup for this brew kit.
Add to this my brew kit pouch (an mp3 case from a pound shop contains tea bags, milk powder etc), a small Light My Fire spork, a couple of 2 in 1 coffees, a lighter, four solid fuel tablets inside the stove, 2 50ml bottles of meths and some paper towels all in a “Brew Kit” stuff sack (bought many years ago from Footloose magazine) and I have a pocket sized (it has to be a big pocket) brewkit.
I dropped this kit into a WWII gas mask case – I have had since I was at school when it was not collectable but surplus, so mine is worn and stained – with a 600ml Sigg bottle of water, some biscuits and tinned fish. I have a 40cm by 60cm sheet of heavy duty plastic sheet, folds up small and gives me somewhere dry to sit. I also pack a very lightweight emergency kit which went in the haversack. Memory-Map on my iPhone, in an Aquapac took care of the navigation (an it is my camera) and an 8GB 3rd generation iPod Nano, full of podcasts and audio books, completes a very light walking kit.
Had a very good walk along the Speyside Way on Sunday, headed north out of Aviemore, did about 12 miles and had hot tea with my luch and more tea later in the day as the light was fading. It was windy and the foil wind shield was essential and raining – you can see the rain on the sit mat and on the bag.
Although I forward my business calls and refuse to do my email, the moment it appears on my Blackberry, whilst I am on holiday, there are times when a small problem at the office dealt with now stops it being a big problem when I get back. So I do need some computing device with me.
Now my wife brings both of her laptops with her and a bag full of paperwork she plans to catch up on. Meanwhile I like something a bit more portable – my Dell X51v PDA, with six gigs of storage in it and six gigs in the PDAs belt pouch, and a portable bluetooth folding keyboard,
Dell X51v PDA
So what can I do on the PDA
I synchronised it to my Vista laptop before leaving so I have the most up to date copies of my Contacts, Calendar and Notes from my Outlook, and the last two weeks email including the attachments. I also synchronise a folder of my most important work and personal documents (including a list of thing we want to do on holiday). This gives me access to both personal and business information I may need whilst away – in my pocket.
I have used ereader.com for many since I was first introduced to it when I had a Palm handheld – and I use my PDA to read book all the time. I purchased half a dozen books for the holiday – and I have about twenty other books stored on the SD card. I have used eReaderPro for many years as my book reader of choice. For large text files I need to read (help files for programs etc) I use ELFView.
I have some software that converts DVDs to a format that I can use on my PDA – so I loaded Series 5 of Star Trek “The Next Generation”, three movies and a documentary about the “Coast to Coast” Walk onto one of the compact flash cards.
I have several hours of Big Finish Dr Who stories and other various audio books and podcasts.
Lots of music stored on CF card.
I use TCPMP for watching and listening to things on my PDA – I have a very good set of in ear headphones in my PDA pouch.
Whilst away I have gone online, at various hotspots, and have downloaded a number of new podcasts to listen to – I use BeyondPod for this and as my RSS reader.
I have SoftMaker Office loaded for Word and Excel – and have been putting the final touches to my “Coast to Coast Experience” document.
I have XnView Pocket installed this allows me to review my digital photos on a larger screen.
Memory-Map is one of my essential applications add to that a bluetooth GPS receiver and a waterproof bag and it is a great navigation tool. The Memory-Map database contains walks I want to do, places we want to go t and notes about places we have been to in past – our favourite cafes, campsites and attractions.
Bluetooth GPS Unit and AquaPac
I have not got an FTP program loaded on my Asus EEE Linux laptop – so I used Total Commander on the PDA to ftp the photos for my blog up to the internet.
For fun I have a Star Trek web site (don’t look for it on the web it is stored on my PC at home) and I keep a synchronised copy of it on my PDA CF Card – I use PocketHTML to add to it and tweak it.
My son uses it to play Space Trader and I have Vexed installed.
The PDA has wifi so I can get online with it, browse the web and check my email, use Skype, RSS, get weather reports etc.
As this is such an important tool both for business and personal use the night before we left I used Sprite Backup to make two copies of the device which I put on two different SD cards just in case. In the past I have had my PDA crash when away and the Sprite Backup has allowed me to rebuild the PDA.
Life Venture PDA Case with accessories – headphones with pouch, spare PDA battery and cover, PDA charge plug and adaptor leads, spare stylus, memory cards, Swiss Card and a Victorinox pencil
Security
I have a password set on the unit and it locks itself after a very short period of inactivity. The backups are password protected and no sensitive information is stored on the CF or SD cards. If the PDA is lost and then hard reset to clear the password protection then all the sensitive data is lost. If the unit is synchronised to a new computer the password is again required.
A Real Job
I had a call from one of our major clients – and unfortunately I could not get anyone in Lincoln to cover it as they were all committed. So we found a McDonalds – free internet for 24 minutes for the price of a coffee and a bap. I used the Remote Desktop application that came pre-installed on the PDA to access their server. A call to the staff member with the problem, I changed some passwords and provided the help needed.
Now one small disadvantage is the size of the Dell X51v screen – it is a bit small so server screens are displayed with very small fonts (of course let’s remember the size is also its strength, I always have the device with me). I have a folding magnifying glass in my work kit so I can use that to see the server screens, as they are displayed on the PDA, better.
This is a small media case given away free in Amateur Photographer a few years back. I use it to carry some essential accessories for work – but they are equally useful when away.
Power
I have two spare batteries for the PDA, a standard and a high capacity (I have a high capacity battery in the Dell all the time). I carry the spare standard battery in the belt pouch.
High Capacity Battery – Dell X51v
To charge the Dell as I travel I have a mains charger and two battery back-up chargers. For the camping part of the trip I also have an in car charger – I use a USB plug and a Dell synchronisation cable for this.
AA Cell Emergency Charger
More About Charging
I have a bluetooth GPS receiver, an iPod Nano and a Blackberry all of which I charge using the same mains unit with a USB socket – I just need the right lead – and in the car I use a plug with a USB socket and the same leads.
Accessories, cables and chargers
The flat rectangle in the bottom right hand corner is a 2Ah rechargeable battery I got from Maplins – which I can use to recharge my devices.
Other Stuff
The Life Venture pouch I use is great for carrying the essentials (including, money, bank cards, business cards and a pencil) and protects the PDA. It has a very secure belt clip and a shoulder strap can be added if required. It is not waterproof so when I am walking I put it in a zip lock plastic bag to protect it.
The downside of the bluetooth keyboard is it uses batteries reasonably quickly so I carry several sets of AAA cells. The usefulness of having a full sized keyboard when I need to write or input a lot of data out weighs the battery use.
Other Backups
I have an eight gig memory stick with me which has copies of the installation CDs of company and personal software. I have my Outlook PST file stored on a CF card (it is password protected) and my collection of 50k Memory-Maps is backed up onto a DVD.
I also have my PortableApps memory stick on my key ring – I can use it on my wife’s laptop if needed.
Asus EEE
Since the beginning of the year I have been been using one of these laptops for support work – it is a lightweight and capable machine. I have the 4 gig model with an eight gig HCSD card for extra storage. I wasn’t planning to bring it with me but at the last minute I packed it – and now we have wifi in the timeshare house I am glad I brought it. I have uploaded photographs to Flickr and watched several things on iPlayer – things that I cannot do on my PDA.
If there is one problem with the small laptop is the small keyboard, for long documents it is hard work – but that’s why I have the full size keyboard for my PDA.
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.
We are having trouble at one of our clients with their ADSL service and it has now got to the stage of getting a BT engineer out to check the line. Outside the office is a lake and whilst we are waiting on BT to pick up the phone and reset the service the water skiers are making ski jumps in the sun shine.
The down side of the whole ADSL not working thing is having to get BT involved. I had swapped all out network equipment as soon as there was an issue to eliminate that as a cause of the problem. I then called BT Tuesday afternoon and explained the situation to them, they carried out some tests and passed it onto engineering. Late in the day on Wednesday I got a call and had to explain the situation again and was offered an onsite engineer visit between 8am and 1pm or 1pm and 6pm Friday – I opted for the early slot and that was confirmed a few minutes later.
So Friday morning I am at the client’s site at 8am, at 9am staff arrived so I went off for a coffee and I eventually got a call at about 10.30 am to meet the engineer onsite.
Now I know BT will have good operational reasons for booking appointment times as they do (I do not really consider 8am to 1pm an appointment more like an intention to come) but I work with many support companies both large and small and BT is the only one to do this to me.
Anyway the engineer turns up – and after a few tests discovers we have a serious problem. He has trouble contacting various departments he has to speak to – and then he tells me about the system that means he has only two hours allocated to this job and if he cannot solve it in that time then he will leave and a new job raised and another visit organised (and I expect it will be either in the morning or in the afternoon). The even better news is that if that visit does solve the problem in two hours they will leave and another job will need to be raised! You can see where this system is going. Somewhere at some senior board level in BT or OpenReach they think this is good or even acceptable customer service!
On the up side each person who I have spoken to or dealt with in this system has done a good job, is polite, knows what they are talking about and are very helpful. As I write the engineer is down a manhole checking wires and testing at a furoius pace trying to solve my problem. The issue I have is with the system.
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