Aviemore

The Speyside Way – day two

/ Camping, Outdoor Gear, Photography, Technology, Travel, Walking / , , , , ,

Had a good night at the site, it rained overnight but stopped before I got up for breakfast. Tried out “instant porridge in a bag” – making it in a mug is OK but then cleaning out the gloopy porridge afterwards is a chore. So my solution was put the instant oat breakfast, dried milk and sugar in a poly bag, and then use that as the bowl – and it was a success. Dirty bag in the bin afterwards.

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Crossing the Spey

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Unlike yesterday the route today keeps reasonably close to the Spey.

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The door was open at the distillery

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Below the foot bridge over the Spey at Aberlour – for me the end of a real good overnight trip. Now off to the cafe to await Diana and a ride back to Aviemore.

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Do you use a PC?

/ Business, Technology / , , , , , , ,

I read an interesting article on the BBC news site last night – referring to Dr Mark Dean, who was part of the IBM team who worked on the first PC.

Read it here

I have been away on holiday now for over a week and have been able to keep up with my work from my iPhone:

* it is a phone – holding all my contacts database and client info (securely – you cannot take the SD card out of an iPhone)
* I keep up with my email on it

To the basic out of the box software I have added:

* Documents To Go (to deal with MS documents – opening and creating them)
* GoodReader for PDFs
* the files are kept online in my DropBox

Battery life can be an issue when camping. I have a cradle in the car which keeps the battery topped up when driving – and it plays the iPod in the phone through the car stereo. I have two extra batteries – a pocket sized, booster/recharge battery and an extended jacket battery.

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I also have a power inverter for use in the car so I can use the Apple plug to charge both of these batteries when camping – and at the house in Aviemore.

A complete office in my pocket – a small pocket today. In 1996 when we came away on holiday I needed a bigger pocket!

* Psion Series 5 PDA, with a box of spare batteries and a mains psu
* 56k dial up modem for use at the timeshare
* Ericsson SH888 mobile phone with a built in data modem – car charger and charger for the mains
* data stored on memory cards – I think I had a couple of 1 MB and 2 MB CF cards
* no media player but I did read books on the Psion

Other things I have used the iPhone 4 for this holiday

* Stanza book reader app – I have about three hundred books on the phone so I have plenty of choice
* It is the only camera I have with me – I use the built in camera app and I have purchased Camera+, I really like the split focus and exposure points in this app
* I have watched videos and listened to podcasts and audiobooks on it
* I have used Google maps, MemoryMap and Navfree for navigation – we found Jimmy Chungs in Edinburgh with it
* browsed the web in full colour and with video and sound – although I did not keep up with the news as it was Thursday when I caught up with the fact that Britain had suffered days of rioting!
* and I post to the blog using the WordPress app

So do I use a PC – yes – but do I always need it, no. The screen is small on the iPhone but iOS is more than capable of supporting my business – the bigger screen on the iPad would be good for some jobs but it is not pocket sized.

Replace my PC with an iPad. No I cannot do that, there is just so much software available for Windows OS and that’s what I need – the Windows PC strength is it’s flexibility. I know a number of people who have Mac books – who will tell me how great they are, impressive hardware, no viruses, etc etc etc, and in the next breath they ask, can I help them to set the Mac up to run Windows as the need to run some Windows software on it!

One final comment – my company supports PCs, so selfishly I hope they don’t disappear, but as it says in the article they are no longer the single driving force for technological change. At Octagon we support a variety of tablets and smart phones, as clients now have these devices and find them very convenient and with the latest OS releases very easy to use – also they are fun!

Do you use a PC? Read More »

Next Overnight Backpacking Trip

/ Outdoor Gear, Travel, Walking / , , , , , , ,

I have another trip planned for a couple of weeks time in Scotland. I plan to walk from Grantown-on-Spey to Charlestown-of-Aberlour with an overnight stop at Cragganmore, following the Speyside Way. The family are staying in Aviemore at the Scandinavian Village for a week in August so I will desert them, get a bus to Grantown and then get picked up the following day. My son and I will be camping for the week before and week after the family week – so I will only need to take the backpack with me to enable me to overnight as I will have the other equipment with me.

When I started looking for a campsite somewhere between the two towns I discovered there was a free site at Cragganmore – just to be sure we are going to take a drive out to check what the site is like before I commit to stay there.

Food

Today we were stocking up on some camp supplies and so I also have stocked up on some backpacking supplies.

Following the trip the other weekend I needed to add to the food I am taking

  • “No fridge” salami snacks
  • Crackers – eight portion packs of Italian Crackers (I will probably carry four packs)
  • Nutella portion pack – a bit expensive but convenient and can be used with a pack of crackers.
  • Extra bag of cashew nuts

    Backpacking Food
    Backpacking Food

Tomorrow I am going to pick up some dried banana flakes, from the market in the Lincoln, for trail snacks.

Fuel

I will be carrying two 100ml bottles of meths, one bottle will cover the evening meal and breakfast, the other will be for hot drinks during the day – I’m on holiday so I expect to stop several times. I will also pack two solid fuel tablets for spare fuel.

Next Overnight Backpacking Trip Read More »

Sat Nav App for my iPhone

/ Outdoor Gear, Technology / , , , , ,

Darren from Absolute Electrical Group (http://www.absoluteelectricalgroup.co.uk) recommended to me a free satnav app for the iPhone. Free – it cannot be very good – can it?

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navfree-uk-roi/id391334793?mt=8

Navfree for UK and ROI takes a while to download and install as it includes the maps so you can use it when offline. When you first run the program you need to go to the Navmii Store, (the shop icon is built into the app), to download the free postcode database. Also available is a safety camera database – this you have to purchase, but it is a bargain,

I tried the software out this morning on the drive from Aviemore to Carnforth and it did as good a job as my Toyota built in satnav – with some additions.

It’s portable so I can also use it in my wife’s car.
One of the navigation options is UK postcodes (something that the Toyota satnav lacks).
Another navigation option is that you can use Google to search for your destination – this needs a data connection.

Using the software is very intuitive and it only took moments to load my destination and set it to navigate. The verbal instructions were very accurate and there are a choice of voices. The map display was clear and easy to understand with only a glance. There is a choice of 2d or 3G and day or night illumination.

The tracking to roads of the car icon seemed accurate as far as I could tell, not being able to stare at screen whilst driving. The vehicle speed is displayed and this too was reasonably accurate – as was the ETA displayed on the navigation screen.

It was also very easy to add destinations to the Favourites list.

Even after such a short test of the software I would recommend anyone with an iPhone to give Navfree a try. It got mebto Carnforth!

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Good Cafe Bad Cafe

/ General / , , ,

I am on holiday at this moment, in Aviemore, Scotland – so it is a good time for me to get this blog going. I thought I would walk in to the village and get some breakfast, went to one cafe where after ten minutes they had not taken my order – even though the place was less than half full and two of the staff had time to discuss their activities from the night before. I am not even sure they knew I had left or not been served.

I then went to “The Coffee Pot” it is the last shop of the block where the Post Office is, heading out of town. I went there last summer and it was good and it did not disappoint today. It is a clean, smart, traditional British cafe with a coal stove to keep the customers warm. They have a short menu done well, some homemade items, a barista so you can get a coffee and the tea comes in pots. I had a breakfast roll, runny fried egg and black pudding and a pot of tea and got change from £5.

Didn’t  realise whilst I was there that they had free wifi.

An excellent place – give Aviemore’s trendy cafes a miss and visit “The Coffee Pot”. Couldn’t find a web site for them but they are on facebook.

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Titaniun Mug Lid

/ Outdoor Gear, Walking / , , , , , , ,

Once upon a time I didn’t worry how much weight I carried when out in the hills, now every gram counts. However I also enjoy a stop and a fresh hot drink and may be some hot food when walking and so I bought a Crusader brew kit – an excellent bit of kit, but heavy and lacking a proper lid (you cannot count the plastic drinking lid as it cannot reliably be used for cooking). A friend of mine who runs an engineering and maintenance company (The Little Frog Group) made me an aluminium lid for the Crusader mug. Two things the lid helps with, it shortens boiling times and it stops debris falling into the pot – a hazard when trying to shelter the mug and stove from the wind.

This got me thinking to make an even lighter brew kit. I have a Titanium stove and an MSR titanium mug which could be used as cooking pot. So once again The Little Frog Group made another lid, this time for the Ti mug.

One of the great things about the Vargo Triad XE Titanium Stove i that it can be used with meths or solid fuel tablets – but the problem with the solid fuel is that it leaves a residue on the outside of the pot. So if I used my mug as the kettle with solid fuel then it is probable that the smoke would taint the mug making it unpleasant to drink from. In my camp kit I had a beaker with a lid which fits nearly exactly into the mug and makes a reasonable cup for this brew kit.

Add to this my brew kit pouch (an mp3 case from a pound shop contains tea bags, milk powder etc), a small Light My Fire spork, a couple of 2 in 1 coffees, a lighter, four solid fuel tablets inside the stove, 2 50ml bottles of meths and some paper towels all in a “Brew Kit” stuff sack (bought many years ago from Footloose magazine) and I have a pocket sized (it has to be a big pocket) brewkit.

I dropped this kit into a WWII gas mask case – I have had since I was at school when it was not collectable but surplus, so mine is worn and stained – with a 600ml Sigg bottle of water, some biscuits and tinned fish. I have a 40cm by 60cm sheet of heavy duty plastic sheet, folds up small and gives me somewhere dry to sit. I also pack a very lightweight emergency kit which went in the haversack. Memory-Map on my iPhone, in an Aquapac took care of the navigation (an it is my camera) and an 8GB 3rd generation iPod Nano, full of podcasts and audio books, completes a very light walking kit.

Had a very good walk along the Speyside Way on Sunday, headed north out of Aviemore, did about 12 miles and had hot tea with my luch and more tea later in the day as the light was fading. It was windy and the foil wind shield was essential and raining – you can see the rain on the sit mat and on the bag.

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Holidays

/ General / , ,

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

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

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

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

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