Dave's Ramblings

Broadband Cumbria Map

2011-09-26T21:56:00.000Z

Below are two interactive maps, first map contains parish boundaries, green representing parishes that are known to have a parish champion, red if a parish champion isn't currently known (see previous post on how to supply info of champions that can be used to update this map). Also on the map is the locations of current BT cabinets, data supplied for this was postcode based so location may not be exact.

In the second map is a guide of current broadband speed rate as supplied by BT, do I hear coughing in the audience, yes you'll correct in noticing that the circles look very uniform and I expect from you local experience that the reality of this speed estimates from BT are likely to be wildly different in the lower direction.

Now the fun bit, these maps are interactive, click anywhere on the maps and you'll get a popup giving champion details, cabinet details or BT speed estimate details.

Move one of the maps, the other map will move in line and vis-versa. You can zoom in/out of each map to make it easier to see your parish. Finally as well at the normal Google Maps, I've included an OpenStreetMap overlay (set as default) which in some areas will contain more detail.

Thanks goes to everyone who's helped add to the data that's used for the overlays on these maps

London Trip - Strange Times

2011-08-09T19:27:00.000Z

Today I travelled down to London for an afternoon meeting which was planned to finish around 5pm,with all the mindless looting going on around London I paid closer attention to all the news reports, seeing if there were any reports of trouble within the bounds of central London. There was only one report of a problem at Oxford Circus on Sunday which the police said was contained so my main thinking was whether to walk to our meeting or to take the tube but I think it would be more the return journey that had the potential to be at risk.

I arrived at Euston just after 11:15am with a couple of colleagues, it was a clear sunny day so we decided to do a 30 minute walk to where the meeting was planned to take place. The route was normal / uneventful, all shops along the way were open and there were no signs on problems or concerns.

We finally got to our destination which is a long street that is just full of expensive jewellery shops (no Ratners here). We were expected at what we told is known as the diamond exchange because as the name suggests it's where diamond dealers go to trade and with this security to get in is very tight with thick full length turn gates like you'd see in those bank job movies. This place also has normal office lets for none diamond related business which is what we were visiting.

Now when we entered this street the atmospheric had changed, alot of the jewellery shops had their shutters half way down and the odd one had a staff member outside looking on nervously. We were early and had an hour to kill so went for a bite to eat and also met up with some other colleagues who were also attending. When the hour was up we headed back to the street where we now noticed that a few of shops had cleared down there diamond shop front displays and shut up shop, we got into the building for our meeting and commenced business.

Within 30-45 minutes an office worker came into our meeting room and said the police had advised us to leave the area, so with that advise we quickly wrapped up and headed into the street to decide how best to get back to Euston (tube or walk). Out in the street all the jewellery shops were now closed with their security shutters down. Two police were at one end of the street with another five at the other end in the direction we decided to walk back to Euston. Once we got out of the street the rest of the walk back was pretty normal, on the route there are not many shops that match the type you seen in news reports.

I think the police had decided to play safe and get everyone out of the area that has a potential risk so it's easier for them to deal with any issues and based on previous days things seemed to be at risk of happening from late afternoon although I've not heard of looting of jewellery shops, seems it's trainers and mobiles that are order of the day.

Oxenholme to Heathrow in half the time?

2011-07-31T10:18:00.000Z

This week on the drive home I managed to catch the last part of Lakeland Radio's news bulletin which mentioned the possibility of travelling from Oxenholme to Heathrow in half the currently time that being in just two hours. I thought this very strange, why Heathrow, is there a need to travel there when we have airports closer at Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, and don't you have to travel into London first then back out to Heathrow.

Back home I did a search of the web to see if I'd heard things right and was only able to find two media outlets in the North West reporting this story, one of them being this news report by Lakeland Radio and the other from the Blackpool Gazette.

From reading these two online reports it became clear that they were probable mostly copy n pasted from a Department for Transport press release that is trying garner support for the proposed High Speed Rail link (HS2) and seems to make out that it's be possible to travel from any North West station to Heathrow in two hours - the press release must be written by someone who thinks England doesn't pass the bounds of the M25

Does this two hour claim stack up? I've tend to do the train journey into London from Oxenholme once or twice a year and it's possible to get down to London Euston from Oxenholme in 2 hours 45 mins, just enough time to settle down and watch a movie. If you want to then goto Paddington then the train times allow you 1 hours to get on the tube to Paddington then it's a 15 minutes train to Heathrow.

Keeping the Euston to Heathrow times the same that would mean the journey between Oxenholme and Euston would need to be done in 45 minutes to meet the 2 hour claim - so is this possible with HS2.

Short answer is No. Well HS2 could have a speed of around 240MPH and London is around 250 miles away so at best the journey would be over 1 hour into London. Now the HS2 proposed will only get as far north as Birmingham although the release implies that it's go as far as Manchester as uses this as the basis for the 2 hour claim. So lets say HS2 was to get as far as Manchester, could that help, I don't think so - all trains from Oxenholme tend to stop at other North Western stations which take up to a hour of the journey, I can't the number of stops reducing, so I can't see any time savings.

Conclusion is I think the report is pie in the sky, at best I think it would reduce journey times by upto 30 minutes but that will be lost if you have to change trains on route to London.

I wonder why more of the local media hasn't report this, is it obvious it's not a going or is it bad timing publication wise.

Cumbria Broadband Champions Map

2011-07-24T12:39:00.004Z

I've produced a overlay map of Cumbria marking out all the parishes and which have a known Broadband Champion based on information found on Cumbria Broadband, looks sparse doesn't it, I'm sure there are more but look on the web it's not obvious who there are. So this is where you guys come in to help fill in the blanks so we see a sea of green instead of the current red.

A walk-though on how to provide to details is available at the bottom of this post.

I've created a Google Spreadsheet where at minimum the name of the Broadband champion should be added against the relevant parish, also details like social network links can be added, these are optional but would be good to be added so as to extend the community and add ways on communicating on this subjects between those interested. The spreadsheet can be updated by anyone, I will periodically pull the data from the spreadsheet to update the map, I'm also happy to input names myself if that's easier for some, a link to the various ways of contacting me is on the spreadsheet.

The current version of the map is shown below, link to larger interactive version is shown below which has options to embed in websites, this map can be reused by anyone supporting Cumbria Community Broadband, I'll post updates on this blog and on the spreadsheet, free free to let me know what your think of the map.

Map - Large Version

Walk-through on how to fill in the spreadsheet with details

Google+

2011-07-09T17:34:00.000Z

Yesterday my Google+ invite came through after someone kindly invited me earlier in the week - these things take time. This post is on my initial thoughts on using Google+

Before getting onto Google+ the only knowledge I had was from watching the demonstration video's and certain users views from podcasts like TwiG. This was probable a mistake as these guys are the Google fan boys and give an impression that it's great but I'll come back to the difference between them and us 'normal' users. The impress I got was I could find and join a circle/hangout - how wrong could I be - VERY!!!

So I logon Google+ for the first time and I'm presented with a blank canvas consisting of just me and a message from the kind soul who invited me. So lets find a circle to join, first problem met, there are no 'public' circles, you have to create your own circle and find people to add to it - they'll know they're in your circle but not what circle it is. If you're from the Twitter wealm think of a circle as a Twitter list which can't be shared, so rather than one person doing all the hard work curating a circle that can be shared, with G+ everyone has to create their own in the vain hope that everyone is roughly having the same Circles.

To start with I've created a Circle called Locals - South Lakes, Cumbria, England and using names from Twitter added 11 people with Google+ accounts (you search in real names not nicknames), so I've been using it for nearly 24hrs now and between the 12 of us in my circle we've conversed between each other zero times. This may lie a problem for ordinary users like me, I think you're going to have to have alot of people in your circle to get to the point of finding out whether it's going to be useful for anything. You could say twitter on occasions is the same, alot goes on during the day but once midnight comes everyone turns into a punkin and all goes quiet till the morning.

So why have the likes of Leo Laporte's TwiG clan taken to it so easily compared to Joe Public (you and I), well they've got the advantage to being able to quickly create a network of circles just by adding well known people from tech and as this network listen to shows like TwiG then Leo's Clan are invited into the right circles so they're able to get the most out of what Google+ is offering. For Joe Public we have to do alot of work upfront to just tip the surface to what Google+ has to offer and there maybe easier non Google ways of achieving the same goals for certain people.

So far I have 40 people in my circles and my feeling of Google+ is like it's just Buzz 2.0, I can see alot of newbies losing interest and sticking with Twitter and/or Facebook, too much effort if needed to hunt out other people you think maybe of interest and create circles for them. Then when you have a starting point the next difficulty is turning your one way messages into a two way conversion both in written form and in a hangout.

For me the only part I could see being useful is the hangout feature for discussing certain topics between upto 10 people via webcam, for example at work I use a suite of applications known as SAP Business Objects, there is a very good forum called BOB Forums for post requests for help regarding the application or helping others in written form. I think it would be good to have a Business Objects hangout for occasions when it makes sense to discussion face to face rather than through a long winded post thread. At the moment I trying to see if I can find a way to make this work - this maybe a long road as I'm having to try and set it up by posting in BOB Forums ask people to come and find me on Google+ - if Google was to allow people to setup public Circles then this would be a lot easier, all that would be need is for me to point people to the public circle.

I've seen this sort of hangout type activity happen very successful and easily using a combination of Twitter and TinyChat. It's a simply a case of tweeting everyone in a Twitter list asking them to join a TinyChat session.

My Initial Opinion - Google+ = Buzz 2.0

Improvements Needed - Public Circles

Cold Phone Call - International Routing System Scam

2011-07-04T18:13:00.000Z

Last weekend I was fortunate to get a cold call which when you hear the first few words you know it's a scam, normally I would just put the phone down but I wasn't the one who answered the phone and they managed with no difficultly to get past my first line of defense (another family member). So how do they know these details, well it's not hard to get this sort of info, the electrol roll matched to the phone directory - all bound to be sound on the open market - basic marketing data sold on and on to the point that it's being used illegally.

So I decided to have a bit of fun, to see how long I could string them along - see end of post for some audio of the conversation (headphones recommended). The last time I did this was when someone called me saying they could do me a better deal on the cost of my phone calls, to which I asked how they were going to better a deal that doesn't currently costs me anything.

Before I go through the details of the call I'll give a quick overview of the scam. You'll be picked a random from their list to be called and they'll imply that there systems have detected a slow response coming from your computer and would like to sort the problem out. They'll ask you if you have a computer and could you go to it and look at a part of the windows logs (Event Viewer) to give the impression that your computer has problems. Then they'll ask you to download some software from a website, this is the sting where the software could do anything, you're as good as installing there malware for them. Then the scammer attempts to get their reward where for a fee they'll offer to remove offending virus's they say you have - It's all a con and if you follow any instructions they give on your computer then you're good as opening up your computer to the whole world.

Well I was never going to fall for this in a month of Sunday's, as I'm usually the first point of call from family & friends requesting tech support from me.

Let the FUN commence:-

An Indian girl starts going through a short script explaining that they're router has identified a slow response coming from my PC and they're calling to check everything is ok. The art to not playing ball with these type of calls is to response with answers/questions that are less likely to form part of their script responses.

Having said they've identified a slow response they asked if I have a computer to which I responded "What is a computer?" and proceed to have them explain what they are meaning, whether it is like a fax machine. I finally gave them the impression that I now had a rough idea from them of what a computer was and had access to one although I'm woolly on whether it was mine, works etc..

Next they ask me to go and switch my computer on, now there's a difference between switching on a computer and saying you have - for my part in this exchange I just said to my Indian cold caller than I had switched it on but was nowhere near my computer through out this phone call. Time for the next phase of Operation String Along - I wait a couple of minutes, pretending the computer is booting up with them during this time asking if I'd switched it on and me saying yes then a finally response of "It's on a screen which says 'Checking system files - 2%'", this confused them but they were quite happy to see the progress of this message through, although my made up screen text I relayed wasn't in there script - so I put the phone down for a few minutes.

When I next pick up the phone they were still there on the other end eagerly awaiting an update to which I responded "It's now saying 3%", this went on and on with me edging the % progress another notch when twenty minutes later I was saying it was at 15% which it stayed stuck at for the next 10minutes. Now if I was giving tech support then I would of quickly worked out that at this rate I was going to be here all day and would make my excuses to end the call but these guys were very happy to wait it out.

Next phase now was to see what would it take for them to end the call, so I asked them as this was taking along time to resolve could they help with something else while I waiting - first I asked them if they can solve problems with televisions, then I moved onto trying to get them to help with a printer problem. Well they couldn't help with my television problem but were happy to help with the printer problem but not until they resolve my computer problem, to which I said my computer problem is going to take all day at this rate and whilst we're waiting could help me with my printer problem.

At this point she was getting lost in how to deal with the call and wanted to put me through to a senior technical person who by coincidence sits next to her. Now over half an hour had passed and it was clear they were going stick at this so it was time to quickly bring this to an end - so I told the 'senior' guy I wasn't happy with the service I was getting, I'd asked for help with sorting out my printer whilst we waited and that I wasn't happy to wait until the computer problem was resolved first. During this part of the discussion I questioned them on how they got my details and where they were based, the answers they gave didn't make much sense, they said they got the information from the International Routing System, then said it came from the info entered when you register Windows. I asked whether they were based - Salt Lake City the response (unlikely), also I asked if they get the information from Microsoft to which they said yes, so I tripped them up by saying I never registered windows - at this point they were starting to trip themselves up.

I finally brought the call to an end when they said they'd have to put me through to their technical support team in order to resolve my issues but the sting in the tail which is the point to this whole scam if I'd allowed the call to follow their script is that they would be a charge of £29 for this service if they were able to solve the problem. I gave them a minute to put me through and solve to my problem but they wasted that time and I decided to terminated the call.

Whilst this was all going on I dug out a mic and connected it to my ipod to record some of the conversation (last 8 minutes of the call) - now this was unplanned so the result isn't the best with me sounding loud and the other side being very quiet but it's still worth listening to as you'll get a good idea of the call from mostly my side and when listened through headphones you can pick up good parts of the other side.

I've posted my clips using SoundBoard which also allow comments be to added to the track which I thought would be useful to allow listeners to do.

(Listen through headphones recommended)
Clip by lakeuk
Clip by lakeuk

Some websites I've found where others have come across this type of scam:-
Theo Gray - Blog Post
Money Watch - Blog
Eaton Bray
Computer World - Austrailia

Homecoming Parade through Kendal

2011-04-30T15:08:00.000Z

Today the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment paraded through Kendal starting at 12.10pm from the town centre to Kendal's Parish Church for a thanksgiving service at 1pm, returning to Kendal town centre just after 2pm. Below is a short video I took of the return at Kendal's Town Hall

Sparrowhawk eating it's prey

2011-04-10T15:48:00.000Z

This video is of a Sparrowhawk at the bottom of our garden eating it's last kill - probably a pigeon.

Secret Kendal - Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post

2011-04-10T14:36:00.000Z

Not a lot of people will be aware that hidden away on top of a hill just across from Kendal Castle towards Heron Hill is a Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post, it was closed in 1991 as the Cold War ended and was designed to detect radioactive fallout. In the 80's our scout group were shown down inside the bunker, we were shown how they detected movement outside which didn't strike me as reliable as examples we were shown were the result of cloud movements.

Below 2 photos are what I took last summer, you can get to it by taking the footpath straight up the hillside from the entrance to Wasdale Close - I don't recommend exploring inside the bucker and previous visitor comments that there is asbestos inside.

Following is a photo of the inside from a Mar 09 visitor who posted photos here link1 link2

Layout plan

More Info:-

Wikipedia - Link

Blogger Views

2011-04-10T13:38:00.000Z

Blogger has introduces new ways to view blogs, here's a short video of how they look against my blog.

(1st few secs in the video are grey then it's ok)

UK Radioplayer

2011-04-10T12:40:00.000Z

A couple weeks back a new website launched Radioplayer that is a one stop shop for listening to UK radio and will allow UK radio stations to embed a common radio player into their own station websites making it easier for the listeners to access radio content across the country.

At the time of writing this post all the BBC stations and alot of the national/local commercial stations are now of the platform, the backers of Radioplayer say those that have registered so far should be available on Radioplayer by end of May. Hopefully our two local commercial stations Lakeland Radio and The Bay have registered their interest and are not the odd ones out. Searching for Cumbria and only the BBC Radio Cumbria comes up as local radio stations available.

I've done a short walkthrough of how to get the best out of it. (the first few seconds of the video show up grey, but then it's ok)

BBC2's Antiques Road Trip - Kendal - Levens Hall - Cockermouth

2011-01-09T12:54:00.001Z

Got home on Friday to find rest of household switched onto BBC2, different from the usual fair of Ch4's Come Dine With Me. Reason - they'd been tipped of that a local antique shop in Kendal would feature.

It's a series that follows two antiques experts in competition with each other, they spend the week travelling to various places buying antiques with the aim of selling them for a profit at the end of the week at auction - sounds familiar !!

This episode saw them visiting auction shops traveling between Morecambe, Lancaster, Kendal then at an auction in Cockermouth. One of the experts after buying all his antiques visited Leven's Hall for a guided tour by the wife of owner Susie Bagget, the other expert was up the Kendal to visit Sleddall Hall Antique Centre on Wildman Street where he bought a picture from owner Robert Aindow for £30.

The episode can be viewed on BBC iPlayer until Friday 14th January 2011, watch from 24mins in for feature on Levens Hall then Kendal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xc5kv

ITV Series - The Lakes - My view on 1st Episode

2011-01-04T23:48:00.000Z

On Monday at 8pm saw the return on ITV of The Lakes above people living and working in Cumbria (yes they're very loose with The Lakes). Locals who are watching this series have love/hate relationship with this programme, mainly due to the over exposure of hotelier Thomas The Gladiator Noblett and his right hand man Andrew The Admiral Tighe repeating the same thing in each episode / series, and also how the series is presented in that the peoples stories are limited to sound bites across many episodes. Following is an overview of the first episode, yes I was abit anal in working out the timings:-

ITV have put the programme in a prime time half hour slot at 8pm between Monday nights two Coronation Street episodes. The runtime of the show is 22mins 55secs, excluding a 2min 23secs break in the middle (Although it finished around 8:25pm the end break was short as Corrie started around 8:27pm). So what did we get in the way of juicy content, well....

3mins 7secs - Starting titles and preview of what was coming up in the rest of the series
3mins 29secs - Sailing instructor Joe Pester and his wife Lindy who are preparing for their perfect lakeside wedding
4mins 31secs - Rob Rose and his micro pigs
0mins 13secs - Short preview of Thomas The Gladiator Noblett then into a break
2mins 23secs - Commercial break
0mins 58secs - Preview of whats coming up in rest of the series
2mins 54secs - Another preview of what Thomas The Gladiator Noblett will be doing in the rest of the series including why he's now laughs at being refered to as The Gladiator
3mins 23secs - Back to this episode with Rob Rose's micro pigs
2mins 50secs - Joe Pester and his Lindy Wedding
1min 30secs - Preview of what's coming up in the next episode and end credits including Joe and Lindy's Honeymoon

So in summary the 22mins 55secs episode was broken down into 8mins 42secs of titles/previews/fillers that will get repeated from episode to episode and just 14mins 13secs of actually watchable content.

This series could be a whole lot better if they didn't keep stringing us along and gave us more of a characters story in an episode.

Recommendation is to record the the show but to fast forward through the soundbites.

Cumbria Earthquake - 3rd January 2011 - Update

2011-01-03T23:38:00.008Z

British Geological Survey have updated details on tonight Earthquake

Seismic Alert PDF of event

Location was near Ripon

View Larger Map

Earthquake Details

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	3.7
Date-Time	Monday, January 03, 2011 at 21:03:09 UTC Monday, January 03, 2011 at 09:03:09 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	54.181°N, 1.633°W
Depth	11 km (6.8 miles) set by location program
Region	ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
Distances	45 km (25 miles) N of Leeds, England, UK 85 km (55 miles) NNE of Manchester, England, UK 90 km (55 miles) S of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK 315 km (195 miles) NNW of LONDON, United Kingdom
Location Uncertainty	Error estimate not available
Parameters	NST= 3, Nph= 3, Dmin=162.3 km, Rmss=0 sec, Gp=209°, M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=5
Source	British Geological Survey, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Event ID	us2011frb5

Cumbria Earthquake - 3rd January 2011

2011-01-03T23:07:00.000Z

Blimey these are becoming too regular, this evening at around 21:03, some in Kendal including me felt a quick tremor and a sound like a heavy gust of wind. Having now alot of experience of all this earth moving malarkey it was straight on to Twitter first to post that I'd felt the house move and then to search on keyword 'earthquake', loads of tweets were coming in from the Yorkshire, Bradford area.

These are the details from here, which centre the quake need Ripon, these details may get updated on the main site once the reading from the UK are taken into account.

Earthquake Details

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	3.7
Date-Time	Monday, January 03, 2011 at 21:03:14 UTC Monday, January 03, 2011 at 09:03:14 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	53.767°N, 1.508°W
Depth	10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region	ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
Distances	NEAR Leeds, England, UK 45 km (30 miles) N of Sheffield, England, UK 55 km (35 miles) ENE of Manchester, England, UK 270 km (165 miles) NNW of LONDON, United Kingdom
Location Uncertainty	Error estimate not available
Parameters	NST= 3, Nph= 3, Dmin=115.5 km, Rmss=0 sec, Gp=205°, M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=5
Source	CEA Lab. de Détection et de Géophysique, Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
Event ID	us2011frb5

Here the screenshot from this evening geological sensor in Keswick

Cumbria Earthquake - 21st December 2010

2010-12-22T14:37:00.000Z

Last night at 10:59pm I was in the best room in the house for reading, yes I was on the toilet when there was a large noise like a heavy goods vehicle passing close by (impossible where I am) and the house shook for a second or two. This is not the first time I've felt an earthquake in Kendal so I knew what it was straight away and went straight to the Twitter to see whether others had felt the same.

Twitter light up with local's reporting what they felt was an earthquake, wanting confirmation, one posted a picture of a crack that had appeared in his wall.

The US Geological Survey were first to report the quake as a 3.6 in the hills south of Honister Pass, this was later revised once the British Geological Survey data became available to a 3.5 on the scale with the epicenter of Red Gill Head Moss which is 1.5km north of the Coppermine's Youth Hostel near Coniston.

This is the fourth earthquake I've felt in the north west of England, three I've felt when at home in Kendal (including last nights) and one I felt at work in Lytham last year, I had a phone call from a work colleage in Arnside asking if we'd felt the earthquake, at that point we hadn't but within a minute we'd felt a very slight tremor.

We are not near any plates that cause the big quakes you hear about around the world, but Cumbria does have alot of geological fault lines, in an interview on Radio 2 today an Geology expert said that it's not really known why we get these earthquakes but it's thought to be the related to faults created during our last ice age.

Here I've pull a drawing of the geological faults from Cumbria RIGS and imposed it on a Google maps, you can see how close last nights quake was to a fault line.

Surprisingly we get alot of quakes in the UK but only 10% tend to be felt by the general public, following is a map of all earthquakes detected in the Lake District - yes there are a lot.

Reading from the Keswick sensor

Kendal Pubs

2010-12-18T12:25:00.001Z

Last Friday I was out for an annually tour of a few of Kendal's town centre pubs, two things jumped out at me, how quiet some pubs are and the wide range in the price of a pint. In some pubs it was close to £3 a pint !!

The Fleece had half the pubs closed of with half of what was open devoted to a dance floor that cleared every ten minutes, totally different to 10 years ago when it would be full the bursting. The Wine Bar and Bootleggers held it's own being , Wetherspoon's had good ale at reasonable prices.

The Fleece received some unfounded interest in a news report in the Gazette a couple of months back on the struggling Punch Tavern's, the gazette placed a photo of the Fleece by the report which made customers think The Fleece was at risk of closing, based on my evening visit last week I would probable of thought the same thing. In the comments the landlord/lady of The Fleece wrote about the impact the report had made, from their posts to me it looks like they have looked to other income streams (food, group bookings) to mitigate the reducing evening trade. A week later the Gazette did a report to try and rectify the confusion that inclusion of the photo made.

Kendal used to have a lot of pubs, always popular, possible a high ratio per population than most places, so why have Kendal's pubs been closing, these are few suggests which may apply to some or all:-

Brewery/Chain Rents
I know of at least one pub in Kendal that closed as a result of notice of a increase in rent, landlord rightly wasn't willing to run at a loss and gave notice back to the pub chain that wanted to put in a rent increase. I think this is the biggest problem, the industry not helping themselves

Wholesale Beverage Pricing
Tide pubs generally have no choice but to buy from the one supplier at the prices dictated, another example of the industry not helping themselves

Business Rates
Rates are charged based on the valuation of the size of the premises, Gazette ran a report this month on 3 local pubs complaining about the rates, but have the chain's just got themselves to blimey for increasing the rents. Would it be better to decrease the rents and then push to have the rates reduced.

Cheap Supermarket Prices

The industry tries to put the decline in the pub industry down to cheap beer in the supermarkets, but I don't buy that argument, if you have a good pub people will come.

Pub Landlords
For some pubs it can be down to the management, alienate the regulars, be unwelcoming and people will desert in the droves. Pubs that do well know their customers and welcome new ones.

Change in Customer Base
People are finding other things to do, weekends in front of the TV is king again, go into work after a weekend and people will be talking about TV.

Birdcam - Winter feeding

2010-12-15T11:34:00.002Z

Been testing out the cheap camera's I got, below is my first attempt, it's a little too close to the subject and I didn't take account that when the bird in on the fat ball that the camera will move.

From the footage I got, think the bird too some interest in the camera at first before tucking into the fat ball.

Virgin Trains WiFi

2010-12-12T12:43:00.000Z

On Wednesday I took the train from Kendal to Lytham so I could have a drink at the Xmas lunch, normally I do it by car taking around an hour, by train it's an example of why public transport isn't an alternative for alot of people, I caught the 7:05 from Kendal, 20 minute wait at Oxenholme for a connection then another 45 minute in Preston for the Lytham train, getting me into work for 9:30, two and a half hours later.

That aside the reason for this post, Virgin Trains are offering free WiFi access on it's trains until 28 February 2011 after doing a deal with Google, so for the first time I tried it out with my iPod touch. Have to say I'm not all that impressed, on the way down, it worked, was easy to connect to (although a little slow), but in my 30 minute journey I only used it for 5 minutes to check my mail, facebook, twitter.

On the journey back my iPod could see Virgin's WiFi hotspot but try as I might it wouldn't connect to their network - disappointed.

I've concluded that I would pay for this service, not reliable and I would use it as much as I thought I would.

Automatically download BBC Listen Again Programming to your iPod

2010-12-05T17:28:00.000Z

I like to listen to a lot of speak based radio, but I tend to never have the time to listen when they are broadcast and while the majority of these programme are available on BBC Listen Again this is no good when you want to listen to them in your car on a long commute to/from work.

For the last year or so I've been using Radio Downloader from http://www.nerdoftheherd.com/tools/radiodld/

which has solved all my problems, it will automatically download my favourite BBC Listen Again programmes to my PC with iTunes will automatically pick-up for sync'ing to my iPod touch to listen in my car.

I've produced a short walk through on how it all works, below press the right button to watch full screen (esc button to return to browser)

I've also put a longer version (quality lower) on YouTube,

Health and Safety: Wasting your time or saving your life?

2010-10-15T22:01:00.000Z

On my drive into work this morning I listened to Five Live Breakfast Your Call which was on whether health and safety had gone too far. The timing of the phone in was fitting as on the news tonight was a report on Tate Modern who have stopped visitors walking on an interactive exhibit of 100 million porcelain "sunflower seeds" for fear that it'll cause dust that visitors to breath in.

Now you would of thought that the Artist and the Tate would of assessed before hand the likely hold of the dust problem happening and looking into ways to avoid not allow visitors to interact with the installation. Few years ago the Tate had another installation known as The Crack, in which a number of visitors fell into, this didn't result in the Tate altering how the visitors interacted, they assessed the risks and had people in place to warn of risks but didn't stop visitors interacting as they wishes.

Why not let visitors make the choice for them self with the sunflower seeds.

Sainsbury's Supermarket & Sport Village plans

2010-10-02T16:10:00.000Z

Nearly a month has passed since I went to view the plans Sainsburys had for Kendal Cricket Club's current ground. Looking at the plans I was more disappointed as the lack of consideration for how to deal with increased traffic that the development would create to an area that already has a big effect on Kendal's traffic.

Looking at the plans they want to add a set of traffic lights on Shap Road - yes more sets of lights for Kendal. It reminds me of Tesco at Carnforth which has a similar set of traffic lights on a busy A6 road, try to go through it once and you'll know to avoid the area next time round. For Kendal it'll be even worst as we also have the Appleby Rd junction, usually you can filter of Shap Rd but I can see this set of lights creating a new bottle neck for traffic coming from town.

Also as this end of town in the coming years we will getting more traffic, today I found out that the group that own Kendal Auction Mart will in the next two weeks announce formally plans to build a new auction mart on a 24 acre site near the M6 junction 36 between Moss End Lane business park and the Lancaster Canal. As part of the deal (subject to planning permission) the land on Appleby Rd will be given over to the developer for house builds in return for some land at the new site and the developer also building the new auction mart. The developer plans to submit planning applications for both sites in early 2011. The original application for a new auction mart was turned down and the developer withdrew the housing application I assume as a result of the turning down of the mart application.

Getting back on topic above is an drawing on the proposed store, looks like a clone of national stores, doesn't look like it's been adapted to take account of the buildings in Kendal

The Sports Village doesn't appeal to me, It struck me that all the facilities are mainly aimed at the cricket club rather than across all sports on the site, which indicates that the design is intended to persuade Kendal Cricket Club to move rather than for the good of the local sporting community. The site is on a flood plain, locals know how much water hit the site every couple of years (becoming more frequent), this drags dead bury on to the site that needs cleaning up. There have been a couple of letters in the Gazette relating to flooding in this area, one putting over the point for the flood problems and another countering the flooding issue point mentions something I wasn't aware of. In the consultation document it implies that the site will be flood protected which I took to be fully protected, turns out only the cricket ground and some of the pitches will get the flood protection. The majority of the site with just get drainage, a clean up will still be needed when it floods.

I'm disappointed that the village doesn't capture for any popular outdoor activities, walking, mountain biking, climbing etc... Nearby is Kendal's climbing centre, it would of been good to have some small boulders for boulder climbing on.

Lastly I found this 1898 of Kendal with the Cricket ground labeled - start of 110 years of cricket history.

Sports League Spreadsheet

2010-09-25T20:17:00.000Z

10 years ago I wrote a football results table in excel for World Cup / Euro Cup, I updated it every couple of years before calling it a day when the net was saturated with different versions of the chart.

I got alot of emails about the spreadsheet I produced mainly asking how it can be adapted for other sports which resulted in me rewriting a new version of my spreadsheet to allow people to enter their own teams whether it be Sunday Football League through to a local Dart's league. I made it available on the net back in 2004, 6 years later, I've forgotten all about it until I read a post on a forum asking for a spreadsheet.

Searching the site I originally posted my spreadsheet to alas it's no longer there, so I've dusted of the cobwebs and made it available again. It should work with Excel versions 97 or older (I've tested it today with Excel 2007)

The spreadsheet can be downloaded from my Google Docs area at the following link

League Spreadsheet

Mini Sport Digital Video Camcorder

2010-09-19T15:04:00.009Z

I bought myself an couple Mini Sport Digital Video Camcorders from 7DayShop, as you can see from the photo I've taken they are very small. They are very basic, limited to two options, normal record or record via sound activation. It's the sound activation and the cheap price that made me want to try them out, I'm thinking they could come in useful when the bird nesting season is upon us again next year.

Not really put it through it's paces yet but so far, quality I would put on par with web-cam's, if you've got good light then the colours filmed look natural. I bought the £16.99 versions that came with a 4Gb micro sd card, as it worked out a £2 saving from buying a card separately but the downside to having a cheap card is that skipped frames are introduces giving a jerky effect if you footage has alot of movement. Users recommend getting a least a 'class 4' micro sd card to avoid jerkyness. Another minus mark of the camera is that videos are time stamped with no option to turn off.

I do like that you can connect it to your PC without the need to software - it comes up as a drive in the explorer. Driver software is included if you want to use it as a web-cam.

Review from youtube - mine is slightly different, has buttons instead of switches, but has the same attachments

This video is what made me buy the camera

Mintfest Review - Sunday

2010-09-19T13:51:00.000Z

For Sunday most of Saturday's afternoon entertainment was out again, I did more watching performances in full rather than wondering around. Even though I have was out everyday there was so much on offer that I didn't get to see everything. Year on year Mintfest has got better and better.

Pen-Ultimate A Day on the Tiles

Cinemarionnette La Cabane de Pepe

Steve Cousins - The Balloonatic

Bread & Butter Theatre - Sports Day

Banc Public Cafe de la Gare

Oddlings (Netherlands) - Mannekino

Le Montreur

Big Rory & Morag - Get Hitched

More photos from Sunday

Mintfest Review - Saturday

2010-09-19T13:23:00.000Z

Mintfest is bigger this year with the normal Saturday town centre performances extended to Sunday as well.

The Krishnous were one of the performances coming from Mintfest's Street Arts Summer School, the three of them were very good at interacting with the audience.

Back from last year Motionhouse with a performance called Cascade inspired by the Cumbria floods, I watched it a couple of times during the weekend

These were a hit with the kids attempting to feed the silver lady without being seen by the grumpy maid

This old guy Vernon Ponder - The Thinker puzzled alot of people with his thoughts.

Dr Butler's Hatstand Medicine Band

RickshawAirship were very good this their performance

Calamity Jane performed an entertain knife throwing set with an audience member

The Temperance Society strolling round Finkle Street

Basso Doble entertaining the public (frightening the odd toddler)

The Krishnous get a new member into their clan

Sport Day back again this year

Lee Hayes combine his passion for whisky and juggling

Rory and Morag on Mr & Mrs

Evening main event Blank Page, six people doing live painting

More pictures from Saturday

Mintfest Review - 2nd night

2010-09-12T13:13:00.000Z

Second night and show were taking place Kendal's Abbot Hall and Fletcher Park, I expected the crowds to be at Abbot Hall so decided to spend the evening seeing the shows in Fletcher Park.

Walking to the park I notice something strange was going on the river Kent, people dressed in white wandering round a table situated in the middle of the river, by late evening it would become apparent what they were there for.

First performance in Fletcher Park was Sufi: Zen doing a performance based around styles of Indian dance.

Next was Schraapzucht, I didn't know what to expect from what I read in the Mintfest programme but the large fly wheel get me attention to come and watch. Sitting down the covers hiding the stage were brought down, it was a 10 minute wait till the start. As we waited we casually looked around the stage, focus was on a body in a sack with shoed feet sticking out, we were trying to workout if it was a live person inside, nothing moved. Also on stage were 3 sacks hung up, no much attention was paid to these as their was not movement.

The performance started with an explorer coming on and looking round the strange array of wood and rope, pulled the figure on the floor to safety (still didn't know where a person were real but assumed not). He examined the wheel and the rope that worked it, from a pull of the rope the wheel started turning. As the wheel turned the 3 hanging sacks descended, then shock on the faces of everyone in the audience to find 3 actors realise themselves from the sacking (we had no clue they were in the sacks whilst we were waiting)..

The story flowed in that the flywheel now pulled by the 3 work people was creating a living space which the explorer enjoy as each piece rose to life, table, chair, bookcase, window frames, fire

The performance reached a point and then went in reverse ending with the 3 work people back in the their sacks where they stayed for a minute or so, half the audience thought the show had finished have were head of before the all four actors took in the appreciative audience response - an excellent show

On the way back saw the last minutes of Page Blanche (more in next post) before heading back to the river to watch a little of the feast taken place in the middle of the Kent (I could spend 3 hours stood in the cold Kent)

Few photos from the evening

Pope in the UK this week

2010-09-12T09:56:00.002Z

The media good/bad will be going in a frenzy this week when the pope pays a visit to the UK, I've not paid much attention to coverage so far on the upcoming visit, doesn't interest me that much.

But it does remind me of what little memory I have from 28 years ago when I went in 1982 aged 7 to see the pope in Manchester. The night before we got to Heaton Park and bagged our spot for the night, I was awake most of the night balling my eyes out at the cramp pains in my legs to which the St Johns Ambulance did their level best to have me forget the pain. The next day I don't remember much, it was crowded, couldn't see/hear much, what I did see was very distant, pope mobile in the distance.

View Larger Map

Mintfest Review - 1st night

2010-09-11T16:24:00.000Z

This years street arts festival was certainly packed with events jammed into 4 nights and 2 days. I was out everyday, night and with so much on offer their was still lot that I didn't manage to see due mainly not being in the right place at the right time but this is one of the positive of Mintfest. Following few posts are an overview of what I managed to see starting with the first night.

First night it was a short journey south of Kendal to the Westmorland County Show ground for the main event Bombs Per Minute. We get there early managing to beat the traffic jams by a quarter of an hour. Before the grand finally we were treated to a local performance of Adrift a musical piece with lots of drums, light and small fireworks

From Mintfest 1st Night

Highlight of the night was Bombs per minute best described as 45mins of drum based music timed to multiple pyrotechnic explosions going of in all directions of the performance area.

To describe how excellent this was is understating it's greatness, I've never seen a firework display like it before, so many fireworks going of the same time in all directions. Local displays are minos in comparison to this, alot of Kendal folk will be disappointed come November 5th when they watch the fireworks at Kendal Castle.

Cumbria Live TV have an excellent video of Bombs Per Minute, watch the last half to see how much fireworks were getting set off.

My photos from the 1st night (not many - too dark) - link

Sainsbury's plans for new Kendal supermarket

2010-08-29T11:41:00.012Z

Radio Cumbria Interview with Sainsbury's on development

Mike Parr Breakfast Show - broadcast Fri 27th August 2010

It's been an open secret in Kendal for the last few years that a supermarket chain had it's eye's on the Kendal cricket club site for a new supermarket (sport village / sainsburys) and also the old United Utilises/NthWest Water deport (source Lakeland Radio). Last Thursday Sainsbury's made it publicly known locally (source Westmorland Gazette) that it was interested in developing on the site and started it's publicity campaign to win the locals over.

At this point little is known on the detailed plans they have for the site, Probable due to one point which I'll come to later which will probable result in it going no where, Sainsbury's has decided to start of with a publicity drive this week with interviews through the local media (you should be hearing the BBC Radio Cumbria interview playing now, if not look at end of post). Then on Fri/Sat 3rd/4th September they will host a public exhibition on the supermarket and sports village plans to get locals on side.

The sports village would be sited on Jubilee Fields behind Kendal's Rugby Club of Shap Road. The land owner of the Cricket Club is Fields In Trust that also own the Jubilee Fields site which comprises of mostly football pitches and a cricket pitch. The field where the cricket pitch is situated was original owned by Provincial Insurance (AXA), used by it employees + families up until AXA decide to close their offices in the town, in closing their association with Kendal they donated this land to Fields In Trust for the benefit of the town. Jubilee Fields is on a flood plain, part of an area of Kendal intended to be flooded in the first line of defence in protecting properties on long the river through Kendal. FiT would like to build a sport village on this land, in news reports they've said the village will have flood protections, not found any details on the level of protection, whether it's to stop any flood water entering the site (unlikely), or protect to a degree so damage/clear-up is minimized.

Jubilee Fields - marked out in red, the top right field

is the old Provincial Insurance recreational area

and right of that is Kendal Rugby Club

The size of the proposes Sainsbury's supermarket is comparable to Kendal's Morrison's, which makes this a large development, following two photos show how similar the sites are in size.

Morrison's Site

Sainsbury's Proposed Site, area marked in red

including the old United Utilities depot

Fields In Trust have come to an agreement that they are happy to sell the land to Sainsbury's, but Fields In Trust can only sell if Kendal Cricket Club are willing to give up their lease on the site that runs till 2026, hence why the Sport's Village carrot is being dangled in an attempt to having them vacate. So far KCC have indicated that they have no interest in moving, which doesn't surprise me, you have a long lease, good facilities, close to town to get local's using the club house which help fund the running of the club - if it ain't broke comes to mind.

How appealing is the carrot? Well you'll get new modern facilities, but it's on a flood plain, there will be some flood protection but when it floods how much will it cost to get back into a usable state, to what degree will it be flood protected, will you be able to get insurance for the place. How are you going to fund the place, will people be willing to walk to Jubilee Fields for a pint or social function, a couple of pubs have closed at that end of town and the clientell are now using the Cricket Club which helps run the club, I doubt they'd use the proposed alternative site at their local.

If KCC did decide to move then the second problem Sainsbury's will have is the traffic in that area of the town, every local know how bad it currently is with a 10minute journey to that end of town taking at certain times of the day an hour. On a Friday peak time traffic is nearly all day as alot of business start finishing for lunchtime onwards. The development to turn Kendal's Rugby Club into a retail store (Aldi sized) and smaller retail stores had it's application turned down due to the additional traffic that would have a negative impact of the Shap Road especially at the Longpool end. It was envisaged that the small development would result in 180 extra car journeys in both directions each hour which the inspector deemed too much for Kendal's traffic system to cope with. The developers resubmitted with a change which consisted of the placement of a pedestrian island between the Station and newsagents on Longpool, I personally can't see how this would improve the traffic flow and you only need to see how often the cross is used to see what little effect it would have. The application hasn't been read yet and reports are that the Rugby club are no longer moving. (SLDC - Rugby Club Appeal Rejection)

Smaller developer at Kendal's Rugby Club

Traffic change proposed for Rugby Club development

that formed the basis for appeal, change the crossing

at the Station to a two stage crossing

So you have the wonder what chance Sainsbury's have at getting approval on ground of the traffic in that area of town, considers they will have more traffic baring on Kendal's traffic system than the Rugby Club development, this is the area I'll be in see how they plan to over come this area as I can see bottle necks at Cricket Club junction, Duke of Cumberland junction, Kendal Station, Sandylands Road junction. I envision at least two or three new roundabouts, but I hope they don't want to introduce more traffic signals

So what chance have Sainsbury's of getting it's hands of the site in the short term, probable at this stage very little, but they're in a race to get into Kendal against the other big players like Tesco.

If this was rejected would it stop supermarkets trying to site themselves in Kendal? No - Kendal is a prime location for a base to support the expanding customer base of home deliveries through out the south lakes, though there may not be foot fall to support main more supermarkets in the town, everyone of the big players will need a presense in Kendal in order to expand and get the most profit out of their home delivery services. There is a possibility that Kendal will be home to ghost supermarkets over the next 10 years like is currently happening in London (source Daily Mail)

This may all be a pointless exercise for Sainsbury's, if I was the Cricket Club I'd say not interested come back in 10 years and we may talk then ;)

Proposals will be on display at Stricklandgate House, Stricklandgate, Kendal on:-

Friday 3rd September 11am-7pm

Saturday 4th September 10am-2pm.

Gooseholme flood prevention

2010-08-09T11:34:00.000Z

Every few years work is done by the Environment Agency to remove all the stones that have come down the Kentmere valley and settled on the River Kent at Gooseholme, Kendal. This time it seems alot sooner for the EA to start removing the stone build up, probable as a result of the flood waters last years and the unusual high water level a month ago when we had a prolonged length of rain. Below is a photo I took last week.

Lakeadam's video from last November of the same area

BBC Doctor Who - On Screen Graphics

2010-04-25T12:30:00.000Z

BBC hit a new low last night with the introduction of a new form of on screen programme advertising to promote it's three main Saturday night programmes. As you can see from the screenshot below one of these adverts was plastered on screen at a key moment in Doctor Who's climatic speech, totally distracting the audience from the story.

These graphics were part of a new set of channel promo for Total Wipeout, Dr Who and Over the Rainbow, which being programme specific will become redundant once any of these programmes come to an end in the Saturday night schedule.

Last night BBC1 took the format of having a long advert on the programme coming up after the next programme, then advert cartoon of the main three programmes for the Saturday night, then they showed the scheduled programme, then within that programme show on screen graphic of what the next programme coming up is and finally in case you hadn't got the message squeeze the credits and tell the audience what's coming up next.

For sometime the BBC has squeezed the end credits which makes it very difficult to read any names of the cast and production team, in Dr Who's squeezed BBC used it to advertise some Dr Who books which to me is a commercial advert which shouldn't been appearing on the channel.

Finally Over The Rainbow didn't get the in show graphic ads, only Total Wipeout and Doctor Who had to suffer these distractions.

Canon Powershot - Low Battery Icon Fix

2010-04-24T21:25:00.004Z

Recently on my Canon A590 IS Powershot I've had a very annoying problem where even though I'm using full charged batteries I was finding that my camera on a regular basis would flash the red low power icon on the display and would turn off.

Today it got so bad that I only got a couple of photos taken while up in the Lakes, back home checking on the net on causes of the symptoms it seems this is a common problem on alot of Canon models related to the battery contact on the case opening not getting enough contact with the batteries.

My first attempt at fixing my camera was to bend the connector that goes to -'ve battery, this ended up making it worst as it would only turn on and stay on when the camera was upside down. But it did prove that battery contact was the problem as the red low battery indicator stopped coming back in my tests when it was upside down and I could tap the camera and it would turn off.

To fix my problem I ended up having to pull the -'ve connector right out of it's slot, as shown below so it's in constant contact with the battery.

I showed my fix to my dad who has the same camera, below is how the battery sits in his camera. From the picture you can see that the battery is 1-2mm higher than it is in my camera, so it looks like although I've apply a working fix to the contact on the case lid, the actual problem has occurred with the +'ve connector at the other end inside the case - it's lost it's spring feedback.

I'm leaving the fix as it is, will be over the top to take the camera apart to fix the source of the problem.

Update Sept 2011 - Thanks everyone for their comments, I really appreciate how useful you found this post, I've recorded a video (below) of how to do the fix. You'll see the first few attempts didn't resolve the problem and rather that cut them out I thought I'd keep them in so it's clearer what finally needs to be done.

Election - Top Local Candidate for Banner presence

2010-04-20T20:21:00.005Z

Continuing this light hearted series, this round I look at which of the 4 local candidates for Westmorland and Lonsdale are making the most with their banner, poster etc... activity in the surrounding area by blitzing the area with their party colours.

Criteria for this is based on my daily commuter route through Kendal and out southwards to the motorway and is based on volume

3 - In joint third place is UKIP John Mander and Labour Jonathan Todd who I've yet to see a banner for them on my commuter journey

2 - Second place goes to Conservative Gareth McKeever, his banner count in town is low but he does win the biggest banner sub award for his record sized banner on the scaffolding up against the local old conservative HQ. As you go out of town his volume count begins to increase but some of the banners get canceled out by using shared sites with the Lib Dems which indicates there are some canny or undecided farmers out there possibly renting out the prime sites to the main parties

1 - Number one spot goes to Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, purely on the volume on banners he has in town plus new large banner boards popping up daily outside of town. One point of note though, last election my end of town was a wash with Lib Dem banners but this time round I've only spotted one, could this be a sign that there are changed or undecided voters?

Update - Westmorland Gazette cartoonist Colin Shelbourn has also undertaken has own banner survey between Windermere and Kendal which match the above results of the southern picture - details on his blog

Election - Top Local Candidate for online presence

2010-04-20T19:52:00.001Z

A light hearted look at which of our 4 local candidates for Westmorland and Lonsdale is making the most in the online media world. The 4 candidates have been rated on their use in the following areas based on intended use, frequency and interactivaty with the local public

Personal Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

4 - In fourth place is UKIP John Mander for simply not having an online presense (or a least one I can find)

3 - Third place goes to Conservative Gareth McKeever, he had the potental to get up to number 1 with his new look website which links to his blog, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages but it all came crashing down for failing on content. Losing points for having no updates to his site for a last month, having an empty blog and youtube page, gaps in updating twitter (last update 4 days ago), having a naff twitter name. He gained some points for having a Facebook page and a couple hundred followers but again he doesn't post to the page, so has lost points for lack of public interactivity through these sites. Also points are lost as all his sites relate to his campaign giving rise that they will be abandoned once the election is over.

Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube

2 - Second place goes to Labour Jonathan Todd, he has a website with regular blog updates, links in to some his YouTube broadcasts. He uses Twitter although he loses some points for using it retweet stories and not so much on what he's upto on his local campaign other than to
link to his blog post, he gets brownies points for replying to other Twitters questions. He has two facebook pages (personal / campaign) that he posts to with a thousand followers across the two pages.

Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook - (personal)
YouTube linked in his blog posts

1 - Number one spot goes to Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, he's lost points on the blogging and youtube side which he doesn't have but is well ahead of the competition in his personal use of Facebook and Twitter which he's been using on a regular basis with what he's upto since the backend of last year and also regularly replies to questions from locals. On Facebook he's hit the limit of five thousand followers on his personal page and has had to setup a fan page to allow other locals to be in contact with him through this avenue which is a good indication that he'll continue using Facebook / Twitter once the election is over - if he's re-elected ;)

Website
Twitter
Facebook - (fan page)

Birdbox - To Let to pair of Bluetits

2010-04-18T10:14:00.002Z

Another couple of weeks has passed and we've had no visitors to any of our boxes so looks like our usual bird watch for this year is at a premature end. Our neighbours box that was empty last year has a couple of bluetits in this year so maybe ours have decided to setup next door.

Bird activity has been quieter this year, we have a couple of bird feeders outside our front window that gets the small birds actively eating from. We put them on strings to stop the crows getting at them, sometimes they figure out how to pull them up which can be entertaining.

We do have a nest in use in our back hedge right by the house which I'll be keeping an eye on but for the moment all the equipment has been retired for the year and is being reused as my test PC

Birdbox - March Update

2010-04-05T14:38:00.000Z

A month has passed since my last update, a little tweaking has been done to the setup but as yet we've had no arrivals in any of our two birdboxes. Looking at how events happened last year (shown below), we are 3 weeks behind the first arrival.

At this point I'm not hopeful that our usual Bluetits will return this season, winter has lasted alot longer this year and we've not had many sunny spring mornings that usually attracts alot of birds out to our feeder.

Last Years Movements

12 Mar - Start of regular bird visits to birdbox
23 Mar - Start of nest building
02 Apr - Half way through the nest build
24 Apr - 2 eggs spotted in nest
25 Apr - 4 eggs now spotted in nest
26 Apr - final 5th egg spotted in nest
11 May - 3 chicks spotted
12 May - Extra chick spotted
16 May - 4 chicks still in next growning, 5th egg never hatched
21 May - Only 3 chicks seen in next
All 3 chicks left the nest by end of the month

Birdbox - Video Capture

2010-02-20T12:28:00.000Z

To improve how I capture what is going in the birdbox I bought the two items pictured below, each device allows 4 connections but the 4 are shared which means the more connections you add the low the frame rate captured from each connection, also special software is needed to make the most of these and the software I wanted to use only allows manual switching so I won't be able to record from all 4 at the same time. I'll be using both devices to at least allow access to 2 feeds at full frame rate.

As these came from china the instructions on installing the correct drivers wasn't clear, the usb device I got working with not too much trouble but the pci card device took a few attempts plus some emails to the sellers in china to get it working.

Finally item bought for this year is a new power supple to connect the extra cameras

Birdbox - New Cameras

2010-02-20T12:11:00.001Z

This year I've managed to get a couple ccd based camera's of ebay, ccd is slightly better than our cheaper cmos based cameras

One has be placed in a birdbox but as these cameras have no InfraRed we need to continue to use the old cmos camera in the box for the IR. The second camera has been placed outside, this may need raising slightly to get a direct line of sight with the birdbox entrance

Runaway cow

2010-02-20T11:42:00.000Z

On Thursday a cow from Kendal Auction Mart as reported on the Westmorland Gazette got spooked and escaped from mart.

As well as the story on the gazette site I've also been told that the cow headed up Appleby Road into Spital Park, whilst there he checked out our neighbours garden (nice hoof marks in grass). Then into another neighbours garden who unfortunately came into contact with the cow and was tossed over, then the cow entered another garden causing some damage and left heading towards Shap Road. The news report carrys on with the cow's journey down towards town where another person was tossed over and the cow finally had to be shot in the grounds of the cricket club.

Over the years there's been the odd cow to escape from the mart or come through from the nearby fields, one occasion I remember a farmer appeared on our street looking for his lost sheep.

Sunset from Scout Scar nr Kendal

2010-02-07T18:05:00.006Z

In a previous post I showed a timelapse of me build a PC, it was done using a Canon A590IS Powershot camera which boots to a temporary firmware version called Chdk, which someone has written a script to allow photos taken at set timings.

Saturday was a clear day so I decided to have a practice of using the sunset script available for Chdk, my plan was to go up to Scout Scar nr Kendal and photograph the sun setting then hopefully the stars becoming visable in the night sky. Scout Scar is a popular place to Kendalians to go for a walk, there are great views available with little effort. When I arrived on top of the Scar I did expect to see that the Lyth Valley was hiding under a sea of fog. This was a spectical I've always wanted to experience but thought I'd would have to get up very early and climb up a mountain.

Timelapse of sunset from Scout Scar nr Kendal overlooking the Lyth Valley, as the valley fills up with fog, look at the hills in the background and you'll see the fog rising. I didn't get any stars due to the camera pointing west but the fog more than made up for it.

This timelapse to produced using my Canon A590IS booting to chdk firmware with the sunset script. Pictures were taken every 10 seconds for about 1.5hrs, I used the settings recommended for the script in a countryside setting. 344 photos were taken which I converted into a video using virtualdub.

* CHDK
* Sunset script
* Virtualdub

Also a very rough photo merge of Scout Scar with the Mushroom where on the left of the photo you can see the fogged out Lyth Valley - click for full size

Birdbox - Upgrading the central unit

2010-01-31T12:46:00.001Z

The camera in our birdbox was connected to a 10 year old PC which just coped with recording the photo stills and the odd video clip but it was showing it's age. To replace it I was after something small, cheap and low on electric use. I've built all my PC's over the past 10 or so years mainly for the fun and the knowledge is good for troubleshooting problems.

Costing out parts for a really small unit always came out above my budget because small cases are expensive, I looked at an atom based build for the low wattage draw but was undecided as the atom motherboards didn't offer much flexibility. Acer have a Atom Revo base unit that would have been ideal as it was so small but in the end I wants to build a new base unit.

So I took the bullet 2 weeks ago and ordered all the parts (not many really) consisting of motherboard, cpu, memory, harddisk, case and wireless keyboard.

Following is a short timelapse of me putting the PC together - as you're see there's not much to it, a little screwing and then connecting wires, biggest surprise is that it runs on 50watts.

Birdbox - Countdown to Springwatch starts

2010-01-28T20:19:00.000Z

Two years ago we had our first attempt at having a camera in our garden birdbox connected to a tv. It didn't go well as the diy infra-red failed to work resulting in a dark mess only slightly bettered for an hour a day when the sun was in the right place.

(Birdbox, with experimental camera setup)

Last year we tried again and expanded, got a couple cheap IR CMOS cameras of eBay, put up an extra birdbox and reused an old PC and tv card. The new box didn't get any birds, the original box had the returning bluetits though. The old PC was usable, connected via wifi for remote access but the downsides were, the video was recorded uncompressed, having USB 1.0 meant transfering out of the PC was slow and being an old PC meant more regular transfers to stop the harddisk from filling up were needed, and some editing to avoid our main PC's harddisk filling up.

(Bluetit prepare to enter the box)

Well this year we're planning some improvements, not massive leaps but small cheap upgrades to make life a little easier.

In my next post I'll go through our main upgrade, but will leave you with some pics from last year.

(Bluetit outside box)

(Bluetit on top of WiFi aerial)

(Close up of CMOS camera - available on ebay)

Fuelly

2010-01-25T18:53:00.012Z

I use a website called http://www.fuelly.com to keep track of my car usage and help me identify problems, I've been asked a few times how I'm maintaining a good mpg on my car so the following are some tips which have helped me:-

* Feather use of the accelerator - press of the peddle just enought to maintain speed, majority of the time I'm only need to lightly touch the accelerator.

* Keep acceleration and braking to a minimum - Generally they are not many situations where hard acceleration is needed, replace the need to brake with gear changing to allow the engine to slow you down.

* Get used to reading the road ahead, if there is a pedestrain crossing ahead look for people that are likely to cross, workout if it's better to let the engine slow the car down to give the pedestrian time to cross without you having to stop. This will help avoid unnessary braking and accelerating.

* Same with traffic lights, if they are a distance in front of you and the lights are on green then they're more likely to change to red when you get to them so you might as start slowing down so you don't need to brake. If it's a regular route then pay attention to where traffic is coming from to better work out whether it's worth slowing down etc...

* For cornering get used to knowing what is a safe speed to go into them so you can workout when you need to start letting the engine slow you down and what gear to by in so you reducing the need to brake and accelerate.

* Keep a note of your mileage, fillups, road conditions on a site like fuelly, this will help remind you which journeys affected your mpg and help you think what you did differently, it'll also give you early warming if your car may need early maintainence, ie you have a low mpg but you know the driving style was the same.

In following these tips you'll probable find you're driving speed reduces 10% but the travel time will be roughly the same because you're doing less stopping plus you brakepads will last longer, and maybe even your tyres.

Snow - Weather Predictions

2010-01-12T19:14:00.001Z

Well the snow/ice is quickly disappearing, from the past few weeks we've learnt a thing or two:-

As technology gets better the weathermens predictions get worst, they predicted a hot summer and mild winter, how wrong can you get it.

Councils can't co-ordinate when it matters (gritting), but can co-ordinate a press statement on the situation 2 weeks after the event has started (but they did need a prod from our local MP)

National media demostrated their southerness by taking no interest the snow situation affecting most of the UK until it fell within the boundaries of the M25 2 weeks later

Twitter demostrated it's local value, snow updates, photos, grit watch

Local MP can add snow clearer to his CV for the experience he gained in the area clearing paths of OAPs, I'm sure he's taking bookings for next year ;)

So if it over? Well driving home this evening listen to Five Live they were talking about yesterdays announce that the distribution of grit would reduce by 25%, well they've now increased that figure to 50% - Channel 4 News Story

Once the snow/ice disappears the next big problem will the newly formed potholes, if you see a pothole then I recommend you log it on http://www.fixmystreet.com

2009 - Year of Twitter & Facebook

2010-01-01T00:01:00.009Z

It's the start of 2010 and social networking reached another level during 2009, changing the lifes of many and also confusing many others, following are my views on the two most popular at the moment and other services I've used that may make a bigger mark during 2010.

Facebook

Different generations go for different social tools, the school gen used Bebo, music fans used MySpace, my gen (working folk) used FriendsReunited. These mediums are aimed at those interested in seeing what people they know or interest in are upto and may wish to keep in contact with. With FriendsReunited it was free to view profiles but you had to pay a subscription if you wished to contact anyone you knew.

Then Facebook came along which was original aimed at the Bebo generation (those still at school) but they cottoned on that it was better to open it up to everyone and soon everyone on FriendsReunited was moving over to the free Facebook. Over it's short life it's changed alot, originally you navigated to each friends profile page which was peppered with various useful/annoying gadgets. Over time it's evolved to it's current focus of a live feed of friends updates and photos. Expect Facebook to continue to change, probable more in the direction of Twitter, read on for an idea of what maybe changed...

Twitter

The first time I tried Twitter was in 2008, at the time I couldn't see the value in it, wondering what the point was, who's interested in knowing what someone is doing. A few months later I gave it another go and it clicked on how valuable a social tool it was. I see Twitter as mainly a communication tool to people you mainly don't know but may share some common interests. I've found it invaluable for finding out what's going
on locally both news wise and event wise, when Kendal had the floods last month Twitter became the networking tool for finding out what local roads were closed/passable, the river level height and seeing all the photos everyone was taking (mine included).

The same networking happened over the past couple of weeks with the unusually long period of snowfall in the south lakes. Twitter has been a good avenue for networking of local businesses, it's impressive how local businesses are using the tool in an interesting way to make their business presence know (no annoy spamming tweets going on). I can see twitter and facebook playing a big part in the run up to the 2010 elections, will be interesting to see how all local candidates use these tools, some are on a good start, others not out of the starting blocks, hopefully these tools won't be abused to spam the electorate.

Twitter has improved with a Lists feature where instead of following an individual you can add them to a personal list or if they belong to a list subscribe to that list. I use this for grouping people I'm interested in into categories to make it easier to follow what's going on. I can see making/following Lists becoming more important than following individuals, I have Lists for Kendal, Cumbria, local-news, local-gov, cumbria-enterprise.

An application well worth using if you use Twitter or Facebook is Tweetdeck this tool makes it easier to see all your Twitter followers, Twitter Lists, Facebook live feed altogether as well as see live update results of Twitter searches which is useful for finding new interesting people to follow. You can write a status update and have it sent to your Twitter and Facebook accounts at the same time saving effort.

Other services for Twitter have sprung up, I used one called TwitterMail to good effect during 2009, first time was in the spring when we rigged our birdboxes in the garden with camera's connected to an old PC (our local SpringWatch). I wrote a script that would periodically take a photo and using TwitterMail post it to my Twitter account for everyone to see. Later on in the year I did a 12mile geocaching walk around Wetsleddale where on my iPod touch I did a series of diary entries of the route with photo, back home merged the photos with the diary entries then sent them to Twitter using TwitterMail. Hopeing to use the service again this coming Spring (subject to the Bluetits returning)

Friendfeed

Friendfeed was touted as the replacement to Twitter, but really it's just a service for aggregating all the various services that are used in a central place, all updates from blogger, twitter, facebook, youtube, picasa automatically appear on my friendfeed page. If people I know are wanting to know where to find me I usually send them the friendfeed so they can see everyone. It's very google as looking at links in your feeds and for photos or videos placing a thumbnail in your friendfeed.

During 2009 Friendfeed was bought by Facebook so you may see alot of Friendfeed's features appearing in Facebooks Live Feed in the near future, I'm looking forward to uploading photos to Google PicasaWeb and have Facebook automatically add a status update to the live feed announcing the new album to my friend, will save me manually uploading them to Facebook.

Audioboo

You may of heard of Audioboo if you use Twitter and have an iPhone or iPod Touch. Audioboo allows you to record a short audio clip using your PC or iPhone/Touch which once you're happy is uploaded to the audioBoo website and a link sent to Twitter and/or Facebook (as I write this expect alot of Happy New Year audioBoos on their site). I experimented with it during the summer on a local geocaching hunt and it turned out easy to use. I could see it being an important communication tool where a short audio clip to put a message across is better than a typed message to Twitter / Facebook. Example maybe if this week the council were using Twitter / Facebook to give an update on the gritting situation, an audio statement of the position maybe better, quicker and less likely to misunderstood. Wouldn't it be great if after a local council meeting each councilor did an audioboo on why they voted a certain way, same could be suggested for our local MP after a vote or debate.

This ramble has gone on too long - Happy New Year

South Lakeland Snow

2009-12-28T01:21:00.001Z

Snow first hit Kendal on Sunday 20th December 2009 and has been snowing on and off for the past week giving use upto a foot of snow. The forecast for upto New Year indicates that the icy snow we currently have won't disappear quickly.

In the UK we don't get long periods of snow falls, hence our council don't devote alot of resources to this area, we had an icy period early in the year when the council got a bit of stick for the grit bins being empty, locals cottoned on that it's upto them to remind the council where the bins are empty and during this recent spell there have been no online reports of empty bins.

When the snow hit us last week the national media gave the councils a grilling for not being able to cope, there was a good phone-in on FiveLive (strangely the next day they were on the councils side reporting how everything possible is being done). Locally there were a few complains on the lack of gritting, which got me thinking what are the councils commitments.

Westmorland Gazette Report 1
Westmorland Gazette Report 2
Local Blog

Well a quick search concludes that they don't commit to much, look on South Lakeland District Councils website and they are very quick to pass you over the Cumbria County Councils website.

So what do CCC commit to, not a lot, put simply:-

Roads

Priority 1 class roads - Aim to salt within 3 hrs (Kendal - Sedbergh Rd, Burton Rd, Milnthorpe Rd, A roads through Kendal)
Priority 2 class roads - Aim to salt within 5hrs (Kendal - Shap Rd, Appleby Rd, Windermere Rd, BeastBanks, Natland Rd, Oxenholme Rd, last on list Urban roads in Kendal)

Footpaths

only when forecast is for long periods of icy weather, limits to footpaths with high levels of use, usually main shopping areas. Aim to start gritting within 5hrs, for Kendal priority is given to Stricklandgate (Sandes Avenue to Highgate); Highgate; Kirklands; Allhallows Lane

Conclusion is with a long period of snow like we've had then unless your near a priority road then there is a slim chance that your road will get cleared if snow continues to affect higher priority roads. We've not bothered with our car for a week, currently under 15cms of snow, doing what others have done and ventured out on foot, some using sledges at shopping trolleys.

Useful links:-
CCC Winter Guide
Priority Roads
Priority Footpaths

Dusting the cobwebs

2009-12-27T17:13:00.003Z

Well I've had this blog going for sometime and only really used it as a glorified photo album, but technology moves on and most my photos now go on picasa so I've decided to give this blog a makeover and start a vane attempt to do a proper blog of my ramblings.

Hopefully this is the first of many. I'm a regular twitter and frequent various local / technology forums and I'm aiming to use this space to comment on various things I contribute to both on/offline.

Wetsledale - Withnail and I country

2009-06-28T12:59:00.003Z

Withnail and I country

Birdcam 2009

2009-03-15T19:16:00.009Z

In February we setup our back garden to allow remote viewing of our birdboxes, last year was a bit of disaster with the DIY Infra-red not working resulting in just a black screen.

This year we’ve expanded, we’ve got two birdboxes now, each has a cheap ccd colour IR mini camera which due to the darkness mostly view in b&w. These are linked to a video switch box in our shed which links into a 10 year old PC comprising of various salvaged/recycled parts including my old analogue TV decoder card.

Following are photos inside the two birdboxes, birdbox1 & birdbox2, as the PC only takes one video input the video switchbox is used to change camera view – this will be one area of improvement for future years.

To take the video feed from the tv card I’m using WebcamXP which is free for a single video input, it has some great features including local webserver for viewing video, snapshots and motion detection which we’ve set to record a 30sec videoclip when motion is detected.
So we don’t always have to be in the shed to view whats going on in the birdboxes a new improvement this year is to make the setup wireless, for this the following items were purchased:-

* Edimax High-Gain USB Adapter – amazon
* 2 x 6m wifi antenna rp-sma coaxial cable – ebay
* 2 x 12dbi 2.4ghz booster antenna - ebay

Generally having a long length of cable between the router and aerial affects the signal, but being able to position the aerials in line of sight has made a big difference to the reception out weighing any negitives of the long extension cable. So now the birdcam can be view from inside the house and can be viewed wireless anyway in the house/garden on my ipod touch.

Kendal - Snow

2006-03-12T17:25:00.001Z

Snowy scene from the north east end of Kendal with 4 inchs of snow

Hidden Behind - Cache

2006-02-04T22:00:00.000Z

Placed my first cache up on Farleton Fell in a large out crop of limestone pavement, impossible to find using a map, but should be ok with a gps.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCT7E9

Hutton Roof

2006-01-15T22:00:00.000Z

Cache hunting around Hutton Roof, also found a likely place to hid my first cache.

Grizedale Stages 2005

2005-12-03T17:56:00.000Z

Spent day at Grazedale Stages, there was a big delay on the last stage due to car 39 (Stephen Alderdice / Steve Alderdice) crashing - Air ambelance had to be called in.

2005-11-15T23:08:00.002Z