Bored on the A40

Wing mirror

Wing mirror

Well we are off to Tess + Roger’s wedding. Congratulations guys. Unfortunately that involves a rather slow journey down the A40 in the rain. We keep being passed by the same cyclists when the traffic lights change. Our previous feelings of sympathy for their damp plight have been replaced by those of envy as they are actually getting somewhere. Anyway that’s enough about the weather, let’s discuss mobile communication devices.

Helen says she does not need a new mobile phone, yet often in the car the complaint is she would like to be able to browse the Internet, something that her wind up phone does not do. There appear to be two front runners; the I Phone or an Android phone [ed. I dunno the difference TBH - Helen]. The I Phone scores for its slick UI, I Tunes capabilities and Apple design. On the other hand, the Android has a slide out full keyboard, is open source and backed by Google. Decisions, decisions, guess its up to Helen. Might be good if she turns the bloody thing on too.

BuddyWay

Buddy press

Buddy press

I have recently been trying out a new (free) GPS tracking system called BuddyWay (link). It works with any GPS enabled phone (pucks work too), you can set the frequency of the updates and how often they are sent to the site. there are clients for most mobile phones. See the screen shot of a walk Helen and I did at the weekend.

Swine flu

Swine flu map

Swine flu map

It had to happen no sooner had the flu thing hit the media, someone comes up with a google maps mashup.

Take a look at the link to the Google swine flu mash-up it seems fairly easy to do you just need to find some example code, the difficult bit is finding some data worth mashing (is that correct English?)

Google Latitude to the rescue

You may remember I spoke about having setup Google Latitude on my Blackberry. Well although it has raised privacy concerns there have also been some unexpected great features. Imagine if someone steals your phone, well you can now find out where it is and get it back, or send the police in to get it for you.

The register

Where am I part deux

Where am I?

Where am I?

Got frustrated with Fireeagle and BlogLoc could not get them to work together. Then I found MoosTrax and I have got it woring, follow the link at the top of the page titled where am I use the pet password and you can see where I am.

Other features include being able to view a track of where I have been, but you will have to wait for that I need to sharpen my php pencil.

Where am I?

I have signed up for the new Yahoo app fireeagle it allows you to update your location then present it to a webpage on the internet.

You will need a GPS enabled phone, a fireeagle account, a blogloc accoount then your off. Just create a page using the code provided.

If I give you the password you can see my location at http://neilbaldwin.net/blog/?page_id=934 and if you know my pets name you have got it.

RDP shortcuts

RDP Shortcuts

RDP Shortcuts

Here is a tip I find very useful. I find myself constantly having to log in and out of RDP sessions at work. Recently I realised that it is possible to create an RDP file, that is effectivley a short cust to a session. I have put all mine in a fiolder and linked the folder to my start bar for easy access. To create yourself an RDP file you just need to press the options button in the RDP connection and use the save as option, or if you are feeling adventurous you can create one from scratch in notepad as they are just text files. I created one from the terminal services client then created a template and create new ones from that.

Continue reading RDP shortcuts

Google reader

google-reader

google-reader

Google reader is an RSS feed reader. It is a great way to keep track of multiple websites. The real benefit is that you don;t actually have to visit the websites themselves, and you can keep track of what you have read and what is new. To use it goto http://reader.google.com signup with your gmail account and add some feeds.

The Lumix has landed

lumix-lx3

lumix-lx3

After a month of waiting I finally found a company that had a Lumix LX3 in stock. I ordered it on Friday and it arrived this morning. It has some great features including 24mm (35mm equivalent) wide angle lens and max aperture of f2.0! The manual is going to take a good read but at first glance the features are endless. No doubt you will be seeing some pictures here later as we are off for a walk with Abida and Connie. Perhaps I should sign up for a Flickr account, and intergrate into the Blog. Here is a picture of the beast.

Office live website

The new website url is ….. wait for it …… http://codsfoot.co.uk not much to show but if you want to buy a book by Neil Baldwin be my guest. I have an Amazon seller account and if I sell enough books they pay me commision.