atomicvindaloo.com – the occasionally drunken ramblings of an urban philosopher

Review: Viewranger for the N95

Ξ October 23rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ N95, Review |

Well, I promised a review of the GPS software that I’m using – so here it is.

The let-down that I have with “normal” GPS software is that I have a real affinity for Ordnance Survey maps – and the smaller scale the better. After a bit of digging around, I came across Viewranger for the N95 (and a whole bunch of other devices too). The site offers topographical maps (read, Ordnance Survey for the UK) for a number of countries; either pre-defined maps such as national parks or, through a useful little tool, you can define your own area and scale.

Perfect!

I downloaded the tool, selected 1:25000 and, for the princely sum of twenty quid, managed to select almost the entire Chilterns. You submit the selection to the site and in the twinkling of an eye, your downloaded data is ready.

Opening up the application on the N95, you’re faced with an OS map;

Like so. At the moment, you can see from the bottom right of the screen, that the map is not locked to the GPS so I can scroll around and zoom in and out at will. Pressing the hot-key to Lock on my phone (and apologies here, I’m at work and that’s the edge of my downloaded map) I get the following ;

with the red circle and cross indicating my current position. If I start to walk around a bit, the image changes slightly ;

and the arrow indicates my direction of travel and speed (by the length of the arrow). You can also see from this image that I have set the option “Auto-rotate” to On, so that the map orientates itself on the screen according to my direction of travel – a very useful feature.

Another useful feature is this one ;

to disable the screensaver, as there’s nothing more annoying than having to keep “Unlock”ing the phone. As you can see, you can also access most of the phone’s functions from within the application.

The application comes pre-loaded with a freebie set of maps; 1:1M of England, Scotland and Wales

together with Nature Reserves POI, Lake District Trial, Lake District Altitude and Panorama.

Another handy feature that I often use is the trip manager ;

Here’s the walk that I did with Shelby on Sunday morning!

Once into the application, there are an absolute plethora of things that you can do ;

• Download new maps on the fly (best via wi-fi – as they can get quite large)
• Search on place, postcode, co-ordinates or POI
• No more sitting at your PC to create routes – you can do it from within the application itself. You can either set a series of waypoints and follow that route or, more fun, you can set a target location and the application guides you in – green arrow for on target, red for “You’re arrived” or blue for off target.
• Routes can also be displayed in an altitude map – in case you get a little enthusiastic.
• Buddy beacons – you can sign up for a free server account and display your current location for others to see. You can also use this to find your friend’s location – great for meeting up at the pub or when separated in thick mist on the mountainside in the English summer.
• Panorama;

You can access a panorama view by centering a location and selecting the panorama option. This powerful tool allows you to zoom in/out, pan and virtually change altitude to see what’s around. What’s more, you can access POIs and content that other folks have left – for example an image of your current location. You can also set the view radius, altitude skips and add daylight shading to the panorama.

Another feature is the ability to geo-tag phots (useful for the N95) and upload them as “buddy” content or POIs for all to see.

There are more features within this application, but I haven’t had the opportunity to use them. However, I can safely say that this application is a truly staggering find and, for the paltry sum it costs, easily lords it over other systems costing ten times the price.

Added to all that, the support for the product is fast, helpful and friendly and I can only find a single fault in the product. That being that I can’t believe I didn’t discover it earlier!

I give Viewranger 10/10 – you have all the pros in the review, and I honestly can’t find any cons whatsoever.

Autumn’s arrived ….

Ξ October 22nd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Family, Henley, Jenster, Me, Shelby |

…. and it was time to break out the Swanni this morning. Minus three degrees and a beautiful clear (night) sky – in fact we saw a shooting star yesterday morning. Three days until I can order my Fenix, which will be a welcome relief from the somewhat feeble (although usable) Everready torch that I’m using at the moment.

I eBay’d the E2D – for a lot less that it was worth but, to be honest, does it make any sense getting through twenty quid’s worth of batteries a week!?

The Shelberator and I had a couple of monster plods over the weekend – eleven miles (avec Jenster) on Saturday morning, and then fifteen miles on Sunday. I’ll post a review of the GPS software that came in handy a little bit later.

Photo stuff …

Ξ October 17th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Me |

I’ve had a thing recently about tilt-shift photography. It’s taken me absolutely ages to work out how to acheive it using the mighty Gimp. But here are the fruits of my labour ;

From this;

to this;

A few updates …..

Ξ October 15th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Atomic, Henley, Me, Review, Shelby |

First off, the Bodyglove XT bluetooth headset. I changed the ear-holding bit from the “Extreme” rubberised loop to the supplied “normal” plastic clip and, I have to say, it now sits wonderfully in the ear and clamped to the side of my head. I did have a bit of a glitch with it the other night whilst talking to Denman but, other than that, I’ve got no complaints at all. In fact, it’s still running off it’s original charge.

Now to torches! I took Wensley’s no-brand single LED out with Shelby the other morning to see how it fared (after I told him how amazing my E2D was). It cost him a massive fourteen quid and, for the money, isn’t too bad. Expert that I am, I’m guessing about thirty lumens – it has a very wide throw and not a great range. It did, of course, have that lovely blue-white LED beam though.

It turns out, after ordering a spare bulb for the E2D, that it was the eBay batteries that were crap, so I bought a couple from Tesco (nearly ten bloody quid!) I took that out the next morning and, wow! It definitely p-d all over Wensley’s LED. The beam didn’t strike me as too yellow – good for an incandescent bulb, and the range was absolutely superb. Battery life of and hour and twenty though ……… hmmmmm.

So, I eBay’d the PSP that I never use (the E2D is on there too if you want it – plus two batteries and a spare bulb) and, once the money that I got has shifted out of PayPal, I’m getting a Fenix TK11, a re-chargeable AW18650 (that’s 2200Mah) battery and a quick recharger. All from Fenix, which means they’re all compatible. That will give me a grand total of 60 lumens for twelve hours per charge or 2.7 hours at 225 lumens. Lovely!

Other than all that. After six weeks, I’m finally getting fit. My right leg (at the risk of sounding like a dull orienteer) has almost stopped hurting in most places. Shelby’s not spending so much time at the end of her lead either.

I’ve also managed to pretty much fix the (latest) oil leak in Atomic. For reasons known only to itself, the dipstick sheath had sheared off inside the bolt holding it to the engine block. There appears to be no socket known to mankind to remove the thing so, after loads of trial and error, I found some kneadable steel (it’s called something else, but I can’t remember) and tried that to re-attached the sleeve to the block. First attempt failed – as I was trying to leave the bolt free for future use. On the assumption that, if I ever need to remove this un-removable bolt, then the engine’s probably buggered anyway, I used the rest of the steel to complete enshroud the base of the sleeve over the bolt and engine block.

It now appears to have stopped leaking!

Bodyglove XT Bluetooth headset

Ξ October 10th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Review |

I’m going to be honest with you here. I am of the opinion that those folks who walk around with wireless headsets, apparently talking to themselves look like complete and utter dicks. So why oh why on earth have I gone out and bought one?

Well, it boils down to a couple of things; When taking Shelby (yes, her again) for her pitch-black morning walks, my night vision is totally destroyed when I use my phone – it’s like taking out a search-light and staring at it.

There’s also the issue of the complete and utter ban on using mobile phones in cars within the UK. Fair point – and it’s always a bit annoying saying to the person you’re talking to “Hang on – copper” and hiding the phone under the dashboard until you’re clear.

I suppose (and I know this makes it more than a couple) there’s the issue of whipping out a bloody expensive phone in a chav-rich environment, or just the fact of getting the phone out before the person on the other end hangs up.

Lastly, there’s the angst of using your phone when it’s hissing down with rain – worrying that getting it soaking wet probably won’t do it any good.

So, after seeing an ad from mymeory.co.uk, I put in an order for a Bodyglove XT. Now, I realise that I have no clue whatsoever about bluetooth headsets, but this one stood out for being totally waterproof. You can, should you so want to, even go swimming wearing it.

The package arrived yesterday and I excitedly ripped it all apart to get the thing set up. In the box are;

The headset
Charger
Spare ear-clips
Lanyard thingy
Instructions

First impressions were that the head-set doesn’t look too huge – which is a plus. The default ear-clip is the “sports” version (there’s a “normal” executive version included too), which is a rubberized loop that goes round your ear. It’s apparently designed to ensure that it won’t fall off during extreme activities and certainly feels that, should it come off, my ear will come off with it too.

I got the thing charged up and paired it with my phone – a very simple and straightforward process – then attached it to my ear and started to play;

My ears are not the biggest on earth and, I guess because I’m not used to wearing one, the head-set felt a bit odd. I’m not sure whether the speaker is meant to be plunged into my ear-hole (it isn’t), or whether the speaker bit is meant to be glued to my cheek (it isn’t), but I have noticed that it bounces around a bit at first – then settles down by itself (either because I’m getting used to it, or because it kind of snuggles into position).

The whole thing weighs fifteen grams (I don’t know if that’s good or bad) and you can feel that it’s attached, so there’s no danger in it falling off un-noticed. I has three buttons on it; the call/answer/do other stuff button, and volume up and down – all pretty intuitive and easy to use.

I turned the thing on, pressed the call button and announced “Julia”. It dialed Jules.

So what? You may be thinking?

Later, when walking Shelby, I pressed the call button and announced “Brian Yanik”. It dialed Dad.

And? You say.

Well, I have a habit of mumbling. I can have a conversation with another English-speaker without them understanding most of what I’m saying – and this thing, out of the box – happily understood me.

The call quality is spot-on. I can hear the caller – despite the thing not being rammed into my ear – and they can hear me.

All-in-all, I can’t fault it. It sits on my ear OK. It makes and receives calls. It can piss-down as much as it wants and the thing won’t mind. And it only cost sixteen quid.

Stand-by time is ten hours and you can charge it five-hundred times. The range is ten metres – which is plenty.

Do I look like a total dick using it? Why yes, of course. Do I care? Well ….. a bit, yes. But, to be honest, I’m quite happy marching around appatrently talking to lamp-posts and complete strangers.The only time I ever need to put my hands in my pockets now is ……. ah, enough of that eh.

Hats off to the Bodyglove chaps.

Let there be light

Ξ October 7th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Me, Review, Shelby |

I’m going to talk about torches today – or flashlights, if you’re American.

Why? Because I’m walking Shelby in pitch black these mornings and today I fell arse over tit down a steep slope when I got tangled up in brambles.

I had already made provisions for the winter morning walks a few weeks back; As this is a daily occurence, I decided that a rechargeable light was going to be far more cost effective and got an EveryReady torch from Homebase that is now plugged happily into the utility room. It promises to stay alight for ninety minutes – more than enough for the four miles in the morning – and cost a mighty twelve quid.

I was there again a couple of weeks back buying a new garden gate and saw that they had rechargeable million candle-power lights on offer for seven quid, so picked up one of those too.

I charged that latter up – in the utility room again, if that makes any difference – and then left it turned on to see what I could expect.

Ten minutes. Ah.

That’s now been consigned to emergency use. I then had the opportunity to use the EverReady whilst doing some wiring in the loft last weekend and have to say that I was a little underwhelmed by it’s brightness. To be honest, it’s going to make as much difference in the dark of the Chiltern woods as a candle.

So, to my original trusty torch then – a Surefire E2D Executive Defender. This baby is a real torch – it fits in the palm of my hand and bangs out a mighty sixty lumens of light using two CR123A batteries. If you don’t know what that means, when shone in the eyes, it will temporarily blind you for five minutes. Nice.

The only problem with the Surefire, is that the two batteries will last a mighty one hour, twenty minutes. That could end up proving pretty costly. I therefore took a visit to eBay and grabbed a couple of rechargeable batteries and a charging unit.

Batteries charged, I popped them in the E2D and the bulb blew. Sod.

At this point, I’m a little stymied – was it the dodgy eBay batteries or the six year old bulb that caused the problem?  I dug around the internet to look for a spare bulb unit and found one here – eighteen quid!

This brings me to a little digression; The Surefire is a “good ol” American product. Built to last and superbly constructed, it’s waterproof, shockproof, everything else proof and designed to last forever. Back in the day when I got it (cough over a hundred quid cough), there was nothing to surpass it. Since then, however, the Chinese have got in on the act (very subtle link there – take ten credits if you can work out it’s relevance).The Americans – like the French used to be – are pretty parochial when it comes to buying things. If it’s made in America then, whatever the price, it must be gosh-darn  good. Us Brits are a little more canny now. The Chinese are lapping up all manner of consumer goods and the various reviews of what I’m about to mention sing volumes for what they can produce now.

In looking for the replacement bulb, I came across the Fenix TK10. My god what a light! Using LEDs – which would cost one hundred and thirty quid for my E2D. Yes, that’s right. £130 – this forty-seven quid baby also uses two CR123As but can bang out sixty lumens for ten hours or – get this – two-hundred and twenty-five lumens for the same time the E2D does sixty.

Two-hundred and twenty-five lumens. That is daylight. That is danger. Not only that, it throws the light two-hundred metres, is also waterproof, shock-proof, everything proof and fits in the palm of my hand too.

Sadly, I can’t justify getting another torch to Jules – I mean, sixty lumens is more than enough – so I’ve ordered the replacement bulb assembly for the E2D. There’s also the issue of permanently blinding Shelby – which wouldn’t be good. However, if the rechargeables manage to blow the replacement bulb on the E2D, then I’m going to be placing an order on the Fenix site.

Watch this space!

Dog Lane – Green Lane

Ξ October 5th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Atomic |

I promised a video of the route -- so here you go;