Neil Baldwin's blog » Keeping it local – Neil Baldwin's blog

Keeping it local

neil.baldwin — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:50:11 +0000

Green and verdant view of Dancersend NR

After a very busy weekend last weekend we are having a quiet one. The plan get up not too early have some breakfast (reading the paper?), a bit of a tinker with the blog, a short local walk, then see if we can catch the Queens Jubilee fly past over Halton, finally cook pasta for Helen’s parents, and watch the Chelsea v Munich match.

Things got off to a great start, Helen was up first and then as I came down stairs at about 08:00 she was walking in the door with the papers. I usually have toast and expresso for breakfast at the weekend, and save my home made muesli for weekdays. Today was not exception I finished off the Bonne Maman cherry jam I have been working my way through for some weeks.

The record shot of the fly pass

I have tweaked the blog a bit, by moving all the panoramas about as the menu they were on is getting a bit long. I also noticed that http://neilbaldwin.com was getting more Google juice than the blog, even though it is more or less just a holding page for a Drupal site. So I fixed it once and for all, it now redirects to the blog address at http://neilbaldwin.net so that will fix that small issue. I think as the blog is the site than changes the most will not keep the two domains separate, and if I do want a content sites then I will just create sub-domains for them which should keep things much simpler.

The fly past was due soon after 12:30 so we headed about of the house at about 10:30, and drove up to the BBOWT reserve at Dancersend which is in the hills sort of between Tring and Aston Clinton. It is between two valleys and can be a really nice place to just sit, relax and take everything in, as the hills shelter it from noise apart from the odd aircraft.

The local squirrel

There were plenty of birds singing when we got there, the usual suspects Tits and Chaffinch but also a couple of Warblers we thought most likely Blackcaps from the song. It was a bit early for orchids but there were a few early Butterfly Orchids just starting to bloom, and the usual Pyramid orchids could be identified by their black spotted leaves. We wandered around and Helen took control of the camera with the big lens and I scouted round from some bugs and plants to photo with the LX3. We heard some tawny owl calls in the distance.

WARNING RANT — As we entered the reserve from the “pond on the bend entrance” we noticed that there was a lot of dog shit on the path in, it was pretty obvious that one dog was regularly walked up the path and the owner could not be bothered to clear up after their dog or make sure the dog did it business away from the path. Helen described it as “playing dog shit hopscotch”. Helen and discussed putting up a “there is not such thing as a dog poo fairy poster” next time we go up there. — RANT OVER

At about 12:10 we headed back down to the village park to watch the fly past. Basically as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebration today was the armed forces day to show off, and a fly past of about 60 aircraft had been arranged to fly over Windsor park and as is usual when these things happen many of the aircraft get routed to and from the event over RAF airfields. Halton being fairly close to London often gets a fly past, today was no exception.

Max the cat from next door

Down at the park there were other people who had obviously come to see the spectacle, as well as Helen’s uncle who turned up soon after we did. We did not have to wait long after 12:30 for the flypast, in all probably about 15-20 planes passed over. At first we thought we were at the wrong end of the air field as we say some jets pass over the other end in the distance, but they were followed by three groups of fight looking jets, blue in colour. I had the setting on my lens not quite appropriate for the shot so did not get any decent pictures but I have included the one you can see here, as you can tell the light was pretty crap and it was very hazy.

After it was obvious that the rest of the fly past was not coming we wished Helen’s uncle farewell and headed home for a light lunch. I spent the rest of the after noon tinkering with Bigshot VR which I have not given up on yet, but which I sill can’t get to the panorama thing. I can get it to display basic Deep Zoom format pictures, but that is about it. I also took some pictures of the wildlife in the garden.

Later on we will be preparing pasta and garlic bread to eat before the football. I’ll spare you the details and end the blog post here.

A productive if wet weekend at home

neil.baldwin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:35:33 +0000

Vegetable korma 4 portions

Luton Airport Monday 07:50 it must be EZY181 to Belfast, and just because it has become a tradition here is a blog post.

The weekend was a real wash out, but we did manage to get some stuff done round the house.

We went to the pictures on Friday to see Salmon fishing in the Yemen, which was not a cinematic great but an excellent film with a great story line, well worth watching. On the way home we went to Tesco for the ingredients for a Korma curry paste.

On Saturday I was up early and gave the kitchen a quick wipe, then once helen was up I put up two roller blinds, one at top of stairs the other in the back bedroom. Two more windows and we will be 100% blinds.

Then it was off to Wendover for me to get a haircut and Helen some shopping therapy. Luckily for the bank balance there was no queue at the barbers so Helen’s spend time was kept to a minimum. It was still lashing down with rain.

Once home I got out my laptop with the aim of finding a way to present my panorama tours on the web. The method needed to have an HTML5 option as I want it to work on ipads and iphones. I found a project on google code called Bigshot http://code.google.com/p/bigshot/ it looked promising. It used the Microsoft deepzoom format, but also came with a wrapper that allowed the directory structure to be stored in a single file with a php script to serve the images out on demand. It was interesting to see such an approach.

Tried as I might I could not get the thing to work, my javascript knowledge is just not good enough, I did however learn a lot about debugging js using chrome and firefox, so the hours were not wasted. In the end I have reverted back to using the utility that comes with ptgui http://www.ptgui.com/which produces a set of images and page with html5 and flash options, it is also gyro scope aware which means you can move around with a device and the panorama moves with you. My plan is to develop a php script to display a panorama directory based on parameters passed to it. As for Bigshot I might have to revisit it someday.

Helen made the most of the day by putting the stuff in the garage that belonged in the dining room back where it belonged, and sorting out a couple of the kitchen draws that have become draws of small stuff we can’t be bothered to put away in the right place. Later in the after noon I made the curry paste, a massive two large Bonne Maman jam jars full. I got the recipe from Jamie Olivers website but used it as a guide. So in summary despite the continuous torrential rain we got quite a lot done.

We watched a film whilst eating home made Pizza, which this time we left to rise rolled out for a more puffed up base, it was called The Ides of March staring George Clooney. We were not very impressed, the story was a bit difficult to follow and I think you needed to have an interest in American politics.

On Sunday we had booked up for dawn chorus walk at Dancersend NR, but the organiser phoned up the Saturday evening and cancelled, the reason was weather and the slight risk of falling branches, but the main thing was that we would not really be able to hear anything with the appalling weather.

Cholesbury church

I dropped Helen and Gladys off at church then continued with the panorama project. The rest of the day was spent at home relaxing, and making tea for a couple of visitors. Abida (arriving with an excellent homemade banana cake)reported that there were trees down all over the place as she tried to get to Tring station but ended up at Berkhamsted.

Later I made a vegetable korma with the paste I made the night before. I used Cauliflower and baby aubergines as a base, and included green beans and peas at the end. It turned out really well which is good because of the amount of paste I now have! I made enough for 4 portions to be frozen.

Headspace2 SEO plugin

neil.baldwin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:43:39 +0000

I have installed the Headspace WP plugin in an attempt to improve my SEO. This post should have better SEO?

The great fibre swindle

neil.baldwin — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 05:40:51 +0000

Listening to the guardian technology podcast yesterday I learnt that BT has a competitve advantage in the fibre broadband market, it comes about because BT only have to £20 per km of fibre where as their competitors have to pay £2,000 per km then £20 per home connected.
This means that BT is going to be in no rush to roll out fibre, because no one else can compete with them. How can this be the case? Well it is complicated in that it is somehow tied up in business rates, and although it seems unfair no politician wants to touch the law because business rates are complex and no one wants to open the can of worms.
You can read more about the issue on the Guardian website here http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/bt-broadband I for one will be writing to my MP urging him to do something about it.

The devils pinch part deux

neil.baldwin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:47:41 +0000

the-devil-pinch-google-ranking

You may have read my blog post about the devuils pinch? Well it seems you don;t need to do much to get up high in the google ranking. After the post there was an entry in google 8th in the list. SO my theory goes that if I do another post I should go up the list, hence this post.

Google white out!

neil.baldwin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:05:27 +0000

I hope you have all been using Google’s instant search features. Just to remind yiu you need to be logged in to Google and go to the google page to do your search, searching from the browser search or address bar does not do it. When you search Google presnts the search results as you typen not just the old suggested stuff that appears in the search box but the full results for what you have typed.
Any way it turns out that there are some words that that cause the search results to “white out”. It seems that iif you type a rude or offensive word as you type Google the ajax code somehow is triggered to white the page out. This will open up some interesting stuff.
If it happens you kind of wonder what you have done to cause it. Have you searched for something you shouldn’t or just made a typing error? You can imagine that if you notice someone on google and you see the screen blank, you will wonder what they had done, it is sort of an invasion of privacy.
This also has some implications for some people and companies, as some will fall foul of the trigger words. For example Bitch Magazine, Scunthorpe Council, a Russian name that start Urinea!
Google also get a lot of statistics about how we search and type. The search feature waits for pauses in your typing before presenting in the results, this means they get a real insight into the way you search, do you type the whole lot, or just a word then add more words until you find what you want?
Only time will tell what the trigger word are, how they will deal ith peoples name clashes.

Flickr images

neil.baldwin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:17:32 +0000

Apparently I can add Flickr images to my posts, here we go.

New Google search better faster

neil.baldwin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:54:05 +0000

Google search

Google have updated their search page, now when you start a search you not not have to press the enter key or button to do the search, the results appear below the search box as you type. I suspect that it waits for a slight pause, the displays, as you type more stuff the search results get updated. This is not the suggested search terms that they have been providing for some time, it is much much better than that. Here is a screen shot of the thing in action.

This is will probably have the effect of shaking up the SEO market, as the way websites will appear at the top of the search results will change some what. You will need far few words before the results appear!

The adwords market may also be affected, not sure how though. The ads appear as you type also, this means that for example if you type “oil” you get ads for oil spill kits, (BP might be responsible for that!), but then if you add the work “tank” the ads change and you get oil tanks adverts. You can see how this is different the user has seen two sets of adverts, and one of the set was for the wrong thing, but the user may have eye balled them.

Blackberry wordpress client

neil.baldwin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:56:59 +0000

Back garden

I am writing this blog entry from my blackberry, using the wordpress mobile app. Previously I have always used the email to blog feature of word press, but I found when I did it from my blackberry it stripped out paragraphs, so I had to spend time fixing the text afterwards.
You can do most of the stuff you would need to do, I.e. You can format the text, insert media from the phone, and even add location information. Drafts can be saved as you go along, so it seems quite comprehensive.
I am going to try to use it from now on and see how I get on. The picture below is from my phone just to prove it works ok.

How to tether you blackberry to your windows 7 machine

neil.baldwin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:50:05 +0000

Stuck at Belfast City I thought I would have one last go at this. As you can tell by this post I was successful.
From this page here are the important bits.

1. Pair your blackberry to your windows machine, via bluetooth.

2. Set up an Internet APN.

Click Start > Settings > Control Panel
Double-click Phone and Modem Options
In the Phone and Modem Options window, click the Modems tab
Select Standard Modem and click Properties
Click Change Settings
In the Standard Modem Properties window, click the Advanced tab
In the Extra initialization commands field, type the following under CODE:

at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”internet”

Click OK.
In the Phone and Modem Options window, click OK.

3. To configure dial-up networking, complete the procedure that is appropriate to the operating system you are using:

Click Start
Select Connect To
Click Setup a connection or network
Click Setup a dialup connection
In the Dial-up phone number field type *99#
Type the user name web and password web
In the Connection Name field type BlackBerry
Click Dialing Rules
Make sure the profile created in Task 2 has been selected, and then clickOK
Select Connect to establish an internet connection.