Glenveagh National Park

Today we decided to venture into international travel, and pop across the border to Co Donegal. We had it on good authority that Glenveagh National Park was well worth a visit, and it definitely was. The kids had a fantastic time, and the adults all enjoyed the spectacular scenery. A grand day out.

Starstruck

As anyone who knows me will know the only stars I am interested in are those in the sky. I liked a definition I read somewhere for what being famous meant: "A person who is well known for being well known," - a valuable trait I am sure.

Today in a visit to Morellis in Portstewart after all 12 of us had ordered, we discovered we had nowhere to sit. So we stood around looking gormless, and these nice people took pity on us and got up to go, leaving us their tables.

Turns out the centre of the party was a man called Jimmy Nesbitt, who is indeed "famous." Isn't that great? We saw someone in the flesh, who we know of, but don't really know. But what makes him special is that lots of other people don't really know him too!

Kitesurfing : Day 3

The perfect, steady wind continues, and so we made our way to the beach once again, at Castlerock this time. The wind was fairly steady, and relatively strong, so I decided to go with the 8m again, and I think that was a good decision.

The kite flew reasonably well, but I think the wind wasn't really strong enough to lift it too high. This was fine, as I am still in the process of becoming comfortable with the kite. If we go out again in a similar wind I might try the 12m one to see how it flies.

I had some trouble raising it above 45 degrees in the window, and again, I'm not really sure if I am doing something incorrectly, or if there simply wasn't enough wind. Perhaps I am just too timid. Better timid than injured, that can be my new motto.

DIY Kiteboard

Although we managed to find budget for some second hand kites, and picked up some other cheap stuff, the cost of a board is prohibitively expensive.

Kiteboards are available second hand from about £150, sometimes £250 plus - well beyond the available empty budget!

Many keen DIY kiters have decided to make their own boards, so I decided that would be a good route to persue. Some are very professional, made of fibreglass and finished with great detail. However, the way to begin seems to be plywood. So I got a sheet of 1/2 inch birch plywood, and tonight Dad and I spent some time cutting it to shape.

Next step is some more rounding (the ends aren't quite symmetrical), then getting the foot straps attached, and painting.

Kitesurfing : Day 2

Having a contractual half day on a Friday is great. I'd recommend it to anybody!

This afternoon turned out to be another beautiful one, with lots of sunshine and a light wind. We decided to give the new kites another try, and today was altogether more successful.

We spent some time reading and watching tutorials, and training SWMBO in exactly what we need to do, and what not to do.

The first stage in learning to fly a kitesurfing kite is to learn to launch, and fly the kite just above the ground. With substantial help from SWMBO, we managed to get this done, and it gave me a lot of confidence in the kite, and its setup. I think it'll be fine.

However, there definitely wasn't enough wind for anything more, or we would have needed the 12m instead of the 8m. I was very pleased with today, we achieved the first stage perfectly, including boosting my confidence. Now we're ready for day 3. Bring on the wind (relatively light, and not gusty, please ;)

Kitesurfing : Day 1

After the arrival of the kites in the middle of the week I was looking forward to getting out with them this weekend. However, I was delayed in getting home from work yesterday, and was asked to help out at a CU event in Limavady Grammar School for the afternoon/evening.

Today we all got up, had breakfast, and packed for the beach. I wasn't sure how it would go, because the forecast was for almost zero wind, and outside our house that was exactly what was happening.

However, when we approached Benone we could see windmills turning and trees swaying. On the beach we met with another problem - high tide and lots of shells. We found a suitable spot, parked up, and began to unpack. However it actually turned out to be a bit too windy for a pair of learners, even on an 8m kite.

It took a good while getting set up, and by the time we were ready to launch the wind had really picked up, and although my faithful assistant had been helpful and patient, she found the force of the wind pulling the kite a little too strong for comfort. If she isn't comfortable, then I can't be, so we called it a day and packed it up. Didn't even get the kite into the air.

We got the old faithful 4m buster out, but unfortunately it was too gusty even for it, so we had to pack up and go home. Unfortunate, but there will be other days....

There was no action, therefore no photos, but I have to include this one taken by Kate. I had removed my camera and phone from my pockets because of the harness, and left them in the car. Kate obviously found the camera and decided to take a few snaps, and managed to take this shot which is not very level, but amazingly has me framed nicely in the wing mirror!

Summer again

Four seasons in one day; not uncommon for our part of the world. Well we have just had two distinct seasons in one week. Last weekend was winter. Strong wind giving windchill factors of around -5.

Tonight however was a gorgeous evening, you know the kind that occur at the end of the summer. We decided to go for a walk on the beach at Castlerock, and it was perfectly still and very mild. Great :)

May there be many more!

Long weekend

This weekend has seen the most prolonged and sustained strong wind I can remember. The wind has been blowing through our yard in a way that makes it difficult to stand, and difficult to keep the bins etc in their place.

Today was a public holiday in lieu of St. Patricks Day on Saturday. We spent the morning at home, and at 11:30 we met up with a few of the folks from our Sunday night Bible study group for a walk on the beach. Again the wind was spectacular, but because it was blowing almost directly on-shore we went ahead. About five minutes into the walk we were hit by a hail shower, which was pretty painful given the strong wind. The ladies of the group retreated to the sand-hills, a move which wasn't really that wise, because the wind was stronger there and by the time they made it to shelter the hail had stopped.

Anyway, we walked back across the sandhills, and headed up to Crusoes for lunch.

After a great feed we got Kate from school, and went home. While homework was in progress I took the head-staggers and decided to paint the window-sills on the inside of the house. Well, I suppose we are almost in three years, so it has lay undone for long enough. Managed to spend the afternoon doing almost all the sills downstairs.

For the evening we popped to B&Q, picked up some curtain rails for the front room, and had a good general browse.

Kids off to bed, and then a quiet night in. Watched "The Trees That Made Britain" about the mighty Oak tree, very interesting. Thankfully the football on BBC1 meant that there was no Eastenders. Every cloud...

Floor almost complete

Dad returned today, and we finished off the wooden flooring. Three years later the last two downstairs rooms no longer have a concrete floor. That just leaves the hall then. I suspect another three years :)

It's nice to see these jobs getting done. No kiting today though, too much rain, and far too much wind!

Pride comes before a ....

Today Dad came over to continue the work on the wooden floor. We did all we could at the floor, and then headed over to the field with the kites. After a quick tutorial Dad had the hang of flying my toy 2.5m Ultrafit kite. He was even launching backwards and everything.

It seemed to be another of those perfect days, nice steady winds, not too gusty. I was having fun with my 4m buster too, and getting some good jumps in, not too high, more long - just how I wanted them (not so far to fall).

The wind picked up a bit, and it only took a few jumps to get dangerously close to the trees, and I had to let go of the handles and let the kite-killers do their work several times, the kite often landing closer to the trees than I had expected.

It was beginning to get a little gusty, but I was having too much fun to notice, and so came the mother of all gusts. You know how when an accident is in progress everything slows down, and you can see every detail in slow motion, just with an inability to control it. Well, that's not how this was.

It was over instantly.

One second I was happily flying, jumping, running etc and later that same second I was getting up off the ground, having been launched forward, so dramatically that my feet went into the air, I landed on my face, then shoulder, rolled over my arm onto my other side, and skidded to rest on my leg. Due to the rolling nature of my fall I had also landed on the lines of the kite, so I instantly got off them, and got up, in case they would make me into cheese.

I don't think the photo Kate took does me justice, but it does show how dirty my leg got.

A valuable lesson learned. Picking up the Kite (I will now address it with a capital 'K' out of respect) I tried again, and learned to let go of the handles instantly when I felt a big tug. Can't wait to get back out again :)

Spring Break (4)

Again we had a lovely start to the day with a family breakfast and getting the kids off to school. However, as part of those tasks we noticed that the radiators were cold... we were out of oil!!

Panic. Call Hunter Fuels, and yes they could deliver today, phew! With that resolved we went down to Castlerock beach for a freezing walk.

The rest of the morning was spent trying to get a part for the electric window of my car, we tried NB Autoparts, the real VW dealer, then off to the breakers. We tried Eddie Torrens, a fantastic place, quite literally the stuff of fantasy; I have visited his yard many times in the past, but its worse than ever. Pictured for your convenience. Then we called with a smaller breaker outside Kilrea, but he couldn't help, and so we went on to Quiggs who deal exclusively with the VW range of stuff. They assure me that they will help me next week, so lets hope they can.

Oddly in the evening SWMBO and I went to the Women's World day of prayer. Although it is not explicitly spelled out in this Blog, I am not a woman. I was asked to do the sound at it, and I have to say it was one of the trickiest events I have done. It is a fully scripted service, with various people taking various parts, and it required a lot of concentration, which I am not particularly good at. But it all passed off peacefully, thankfully :)

Spring Break (3)

Brekkie starts the day again, then the kids off to the Bus. We popped back into the house for a wee cup of tea.

I was asked to investigate walking routes for the Young Adults group in church, so we set sail for the causeway. We were really checking out parking arrangements, to try to ensure we could plan to park at a free carpark.

After calling briefly at the £5 per car Giants Causeway, we went round the coast road to Dunseverick Castle.

From there we travelled on around to the harbour, and then on round to Portbradden.

Travelling on the next port of call was White Park Bay where we stopped for a walk on the beach. It was freezing (almost literally).

Lastly we called at Ballintoy Harbour where the waves were breathtaking as they splashed over the rocks.

Afterwards we went home via Portbalintree for a light lunch, before picking up Kate from school.

We had a couple of small issues with the house, and so we waited for the builder to appear, and after some time he did, and we got problems sorted.

For the first time in a long time we got the kites out, and it was fantastic wind for them both, and it was great until the rain came on.

We gathered the kites up, and had a lovely Tescos pizza for tea. The excitement for the night was only about to begin, but unfortunately for the details of that excitement you'll have to check the minute book of First Dunboe Church's Committee.

Spring Break (2)

Second day of our break starts by having brekkie with kids again. After the usual madness, we got them off to the bus, and then headed for Cookstown to collect the new radio mic for the church hall.

On the way back we decided to detour, and found ourselves Lough Fea, which probably would be nice to see, but not today, as it was miserable and cold. Coming home we took another detour around Garvagh, where I was looking for an underwater bridge, or Ford, which I had childhood recollections of. We eventually found it, and I have to say that it wasn't easy to pluck up the courage to drive my car across a river. But I did it, and it was great, much to the amusement of SWMBO we made it through unscathed.

Next we decided cream buns would be good, and went into the "bakery" in Garvagh, and ended up coming out with scones. As we were in the area we popped over to Mums for a wee cuppa.

Afterwards we got some prices for tyres for my car, and then went in to pick up car2. On the way home we met a man on Captain Street, which may not sound unusual, except when you realise its a one-way street!

We picked up Kate from school, got tyres for my car and tried to get the alignment done, but because of a seized nut no-one would touch it.

After tea we all went for walk on beach in very strong wind, which was amusing, but freeezzzing.

Then home and kids to bed :) The End for today.

Spring Break (1)

Today SWMBO and started out holiday with a little lie in. We started the day with a family breakfast, followed by the usual hectic act of getting ready for school. Any Tuesday starts the same way, I kick off the latest '24' download. Then its off to the garage with my car for its service.

After dropping the car off I had some time to kill, so I did something I've been meaning to do for some time : make an appointment with our dentist.

With that sorted, I just had to stand on Railway Road, in the rain, until SWMBO picked me up. Then we popped over to B&Q for cups and pads to protect the wooden floor from the furniture.

Next we went over to Limavady to Bradleys to see if they could fix our thermostatic shower, which had grown distinctly less "thermostatic" over the last few weeks. Turns out it is under a five year warranty, so that should be fixed shortly.

We popped into Tescos to get some food for lunch, and then it was back home for tea. Lazily we killed a couple of hours watching "Mr & Mrs Smith" before having a pizza for lunch.

That is the holiday over, the usual procedure begins : pick up Kate, do homework, pick up Matthew, off to swimming lessons, all good fun.

After swimming it is time to pick up car1, and leave in car2, and have a heart attack at £380 bill!
Home for tea, then got Kate off to GB, then picked her up, and retired the kids to bed.

Time for a quiet evening watching 24, another action packed episode, great stuff.

Afterwards I watched William Crawley's interview with Dawkins, which was very interesting and informative, and certainly worth a watch. Sad really.

This is of course followed by falling asleep in front of the telly, and off to bed. Goodnight ;)

Paragliding

Today was a pleasant Saturday, breakfast with the family, then a few chores, the first of which was to pick up 12 sheets of 8x4 3/4 ply for under the wooden floor.

As the Sun was setting we saw the sunset was going to be beautiful; at this time of year the Sun sets further round the coast, and so we set off for Gortmore viewpoint. We got to see the sunset, and got a couple of snaps, which do not do it justice at all, but the cool thing was seeing a para glider come up from behind the cliff!

It was quite bizarre, but really interesting, and he was close enough to wave back to the kids, which they thought was great.

Roe Valley

Today we visited the Roe Valley Country park, which is a great park, just outside Limavady. We visited before recently, but the rain came on, and as we weren't completely sure about our solubility in water, we decided not to risk it, and got back into the car.

Today, however, it was not raining, but dry, mild, and calm. A perfect location for a great walk.

We walked southwards down one side of the river, and crossed over at the first bridge, and back along the other side. It was about 3 miles, which we walked in just less than an hour. A great way to spend Friday afternoon.

When we were almost around we spotted this Robin, and it sat on the branch while I got closer, and managed to snap this shot!

Riding in Cars with Boys [2001]

Having a quiet night in I randomly flicked through the films tonight on my TiVo. I ended up with "Riding in Cars with Boys", which I would never consciously choose, and to be honest if I hadn't been doing other things on the laptop at the time I probably would have switched over.

It's really a quite tragic story about two teenage friends who fall pregnant* and how these events profoundly shape their lives. Its a very emotive story, touching on all sorts of family problems including marital breakdown and drug abuse.

It's not the kind of film I like, but by the end I was gripped. Watching this film made me realise how amazingly privileged we all are. We live in nice homes, in nice neighbourhoods, with pleasant friends and loving, supportive families. Our lives and close families tend to be free from all the problems in the film, for example I have never had to attempt to nurse my spouse through cold turkey as they come off heroin. Many people in the world do have this and similar or even worse experiences. Maybe tonight we should spend time really thanking God for the bounteous gifts we enjoy on a daily basis.



* this phrase always amuses me, its not like anyone has ever just "fallen" pregnant...

Out of hibernation

Hopefully the lull in postings here has ended. The reason for the lull is simple. Each time I post it is because I have been doing something which I think is interesting. I simply haven't done anything that interesting recently.

This weekend was different though, with the unusually warm weather and bright sunny skies. On Friday afternoon we reassembled the trampoline which had been taken apart for safety reasons due to the high winter winds. It was great to get it back together, and a few bounces later it was as if it had never been away! Great!

The kids were mad to get out for a ride on their bikes, so on Saturday we packed them into the car and made our way to Castlerock where we had a great walk on the beach. The moon is full just now, meaning the low tide is very low, and fortunately low tide was early afternoon, meaning a huge amount of the beach was hard wet sand. The kids loved it and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

The best bit for me was the way the waves were splashing against the end of the pier. This seems to happen periodically when the waves are big and the tide is low. It can be quite spectacular, and worth a look. The great thing about it is that while the pier can be dangerous at high tide, at low tide the only danger is getting wet by a cloud of spray, as the water doesn't actually wash over the pier at all.

There were a couple of guys at the end of the pier attempting to get a good photo, but I think they weren't standing far enough back; I think I got the picture they were looking for.

Light commute

Yesterday on the way home around 5pm there was a distinct difference. It was no longer dark, but twilight with bright skies visible beyond the hills. This, coupled with the fact that it wasn't actually raining for a change made the mundane commute into an enjoyable drive.

This morning was another pleasantly unusual experience, by arrival at work for 8am it was getting light.

It's nice to see the days stretch, and it'll be nice to get back outdoors in the evenings again!

1st Jan 2007

After yesterdays window issues, I spent this morning fixing a passat electric winding mechanism. Great fun. Thanks to this site the job was a whole lot easier. They really try very hard to make stupid people like me unable to do these kind of jobs.

After a bit of work I got the window jammed up, although not working correctly at all, at least it would stay up to keep out the elements.

I popped down the road to the in-laws where my very mechanically minded Father-in-law and I managed to get the whole mechanism back together.

After this we decided to go for a sail in the car, and set out towards Donegal. We hadn't really any destination in mind, which made it difficult to answer the "are we there yet?" questions originating from the back seat. However, we ended up in Greencastle, and decided to try to catch the Ferry back to Magilligan Point. Unfortunately we missed it by a few minutes, but this afforded us the opportunity to take a drive round part of the spectacular Inishowen 100 allowing us to get the reverse of our normal view. The hills we drove around are the ones we normally see across the sea from Castlerock, or Benone.

It was a great way to pass the 40 minutes before we boarded the ferry. The sailing was relatively smooth, and the kids really enjoyed it, as we spent the 15 minute trip on the deck, peering over the edge of the boat.

Ref:

http://www.taligentx.com/passat/maintenance/doorlockmechanism/

Windy problems....

The wind today was something spectacular, at some times it was difficult to stand or walk, great! I decided it would be good to embrace these elements, and go for a walk. I set out in the car down the road towards the beach (the waves are bound to be spectacular too...) but about 1/2 a mile from home my driver side window started to go down of its own accord, and after a few inches dropped instantly out of sight.

This is the kind of "windy" problem I could have done without. Anyhow, I got home, had a quick wrestle with the door/window, and lost. So I decided to cut my losses until daylight, and less windy conditions, and covered the window opening with plastic, and parked the car in as sheltered a spot as we could find.

The Vanishing [2003]

This has got to be one of my favorite movies of all time, it is certainly one that has popped into my mind frequently, usually weekly, since I first saw it years ago. Every time SWMBO pops into a petrol station, and does whatever one does in a petrol station that takes longer than it should, I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

It was broadcast again this Christmas, and I PVR'd it and watched it again the other night. It definitely stood the test of time for me, and was a captivating watch once again. Great story, interesting interpretation of a fairly standard thriller storyline.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108473/

Van Helsing [2004]

I muddle my way through a lot of films, but this is an epic and a true work of genius for me. The filming locations, effects, coloring and flow of this film are all excellent. The visual spectacle of this film is captivating, and although the story is barely more than the usual goodie chases baddie storyline it is still one of the best films I have seen in a long time. I can heartily recommend this one, although it is spoilt a little by a slightly overly sentimental ending!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338526/

It's Christmas time....

This Christmas we decided to do things a little differently. We wanted to spend as much time at home as possible, due to the fact that the kids received a set of drums for their main present. Obviously this present is not as portable as normal, and so rather than traipse around the clan we had the in-laws to ours home for dinner, and then a relaxing afternoon in front of a great fire.

Later we headed over to my folks, and again sat in front of a blazing fire and exchanged gifts.

After that it was off to the family do where we get to see our once-a-year cousins etc, etc, which was actually thoroughly enjoyable.

I know, I know what you're thinking, we didn't do great at the staying at home thing we planned. In fact we did manage to spend significantly longer at home on Christmas Day than we ever usually do. Today, however was different. Usually the vast majority of Boxing Day is spent with the other side of the family. For the first time, we skipped it.

We stayed at home all day, with the exception of a walk on the beach. I was firmly assured that a walk on the beach on a day like today was paramount to madness, however the fun we had there in that hour was unparallelled in a long time. A great Christmas.

Turn 'em off

There is no need for you to use your fog lights in this weather*.

I hope that a large percentage of the people who share the roads on which I commute read this blog. Recently the weather has been "foggy." I would suggest a better word would be "mist," which I would define as not as thick as fog.

Now, "fog lights", that all of our cars are equipped with are there to make us more visible to other drivers. This is their purpose.

If I am driving 10 metres (or similar) behind you, and can see the colour of your car, and read your number plate, you do not need to use your fog lights to make yourself more visible to me, or whoever is behind you.

When driving in bumper to bumper traffic, turn those fog lights off. It is actually a hazard to have them on as 1) it can be dazzling to the people behind; they cannot see as clearly what lies ahead
and 2) it hampers the contrast effect of your brake lights, which are designed to draw attention even from the peripheral vision of the driver behind.

Please drive sensibly.

* The exception is if you are the last car in the traffic. In that case it is prudent to use your lights to draw attentation any cars who may catch up behind you. Once a car has caught up however, turn 'em off. The law states that you should turn them on, and off "when required."

Portstewart in the rain

Today we visited Portstewart briefly for some Christmas shopping. Before I became overcome with the shopping excitement, I managed to excuse myself, and pop across the promenade, and snap some pictures of the Sun setting behind the Convent.

More heating work

One of my objectives with the automated heating system was to be able to record how much we use the heating, and so I record all on/off events in a logfile. In order to visualise the data I went looking for a free chart component for c#.

I found ZedGraph, which is a sourceforge project for "creating 2D line and bar graphs" - exactly what I wanted. I spent some time writing code to parse the file into time events, and adding new commands to the server to retrieve the data.

I knocked out a quick GUI, which is not fully functional yet, but it demonstrates what I want to see.

Below is a screenshot of a graph for December so far...

For some reason the graph always leaves the first label off the x axis, but thats really only minor in the grand scheme of things!

Another week, another release

Development has slowed considerably on the heating project, but I try to make any small changes go live on a Friday, so that it has the maximum live testing time to show any problems before I leave it with the family on Monday.

This week sees some more tidyup, lots of thread locking code and some other robustness features.

From the users point of view there is one major improvement - it is now possible to set the timed programs from the GUI. Using a graphical week calendar component I picked up at the code project it is just a matter of highlighting the times of the week when the heat should be on, and thats it!

Right clicking on the display for a zone brings up the following screen:

From here it is possible to create "Once" programs, that are deleted after they run, or "Weekly" programs that are saved to run every week.

DRM is evil

DRM or Digital Rights Management is more than just an annoyance. It is an assult on you as a consumer. Its purpose is to allow -them- to restrict what *you* can do with *your* music which *you* paid -them- for.

With all the recent chat about allofmp3.com, and its imminant closure the options for buying DRM free music are diminishing.

There is no reason why other sites cannot offer DRM free music for a reasonable price. I can buy a CD from cd-wow for £2.99, and apply a £0.50 or £1.00 discount to it, where they probably spend about £0.50 for shipping, leaving about £1.50 - £2.00 for them. Now I'm no businesssman, but I doubt they are making less than £0.50 on the sale, leaving the cost price of the CD at somewhere between £1.00 and £1.50. Why can't I buy the content for that price online? Why do itunes want $0.99 per track for aweful quality, DRM ridden downloads?

Where does the itunes $0.99 go? According to various articles about $0.34 goes to Apple, the rest to the music company, of which about $0.10 goes to the artist. I'd prefer to give the $0.10 directly to the artist...

What if I change player? Perhaps I have bought music from Rhapsody or MSN Music and want to play it on my Zune. Perhaps I buy from Apple and want to play on my random £10 256Mb MP3 player. Stuck? You bet I am! In my opinion this is the one that will bite the companies in the long run, people will revolt after finding that their music libraries are useless except on antique devices.

If you buy content with DRM you are perpetuating the problem and storing up problems for the future, you have been warned. I'll just stick with my 3221 3222 DRM free mp3s, which I get to stream to our 2 PCs, laptop, xbmc and listen to on my iPod at work or in the car. Its great, its almost like I can do what I want with *my* music, a freedom soon to be relinquished from consumers.

DRM is designed to hurt you, don't let it!

Tagalog Proverb

Apparently (and I hope this doesn't spoil this for all who will read before attending church in the morning) there will be a reading in Tagalog tomorrow at church. So wifey and I had a google for Tagalog, and it turned up this page from wikipedia.

I thought one of the proverbs listed was particularly appropriate to one of us (I'm not saying who, but she sleeps a lot)(oops) :

"Magbirô lamang sa lasíng, huwág lang sa bagong gising."

Which translates to :

"Joke around with someone who is drunk, but not with someone newly awoken."

Wise words

Wireless networking

When I managed to pick up a laptop that was being disposed of, I decided it was time to go wireless. In my usual manner I went scrounging, and managed to persuade friends at work to lend me a wireless usb adapter, and a PCMCIA card. After fighting with it for a while, I had managed to share the internet connection from the Kitchen PC with the laptop.

I quickly popped to eBay for a more perminant solution, and managed to pick up a wireless router, and a PCMCIA card of my own. Both are the now outdated 802.11b 11Mbps standard, but for a total of around £20 I couldn't complain.

The PCMCIA card arrived quickly, and was a straight swap for the one I had borrowed. The router on the other hand had not arrived. It was coming internationally, and so I left it for a few weeks. Last week I finally contacted the seller and told him it hadn't arrived. He kindly offered a refund if it didn't appear shortly, and it didn't, so he did.

I managed to pick another one up, slightly more expensive, but it arrived in a day, and after a bit of messing it was installed last night.

As I already had an ADSL router I wanted to connect this more as a switch and access point, and this guide at Tom's Networking showed exactly the way to do it. Thanks Tom.

All working now, and much more reliable than the other access point, I'm writing this over the wireless now!

The heat is on

As all you avid readers will know, my initial deployment of the heating system met with difficulties on day 1, but after a quick fix it has been working well ever since.

You will also have noted my lack of blog postings recently. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, there hasn't been a lot happening in these shorter, darker days. Secondly, and possibly the reason for the first, I have been spending most of my free time working at tidying up the heating system software.

The new version of the system, deployed today, is a lot tidier, and hopefully more robust. It is also more
feature-filled with SMS, Web and Yahoo Instant Messenger clients now in operation.

I had a wrestle with the SMS provider, quite a saga really. They provide a free reply-to service - this means I can register for replys, send a text from my account to my phone, and any replies to that message are fed through a URL of my choice. They switched it on and I got this working at once, with a little test program. However, when I came back to my test program this week, it didn't work! After a 15 email marathon, we finally discovered that the SMS folks don't support dynamic DNS. Annoying, but at least we found the solution. Now I have a wrestle with my ISP to get a static IP address :((

Now the completed system is all written, and comlpete, bar a few would-be-nice features, I can rest on my laurels for a few days. Probably means it won't be looked at until Oct 2007 :)

Apache in WinXp

Few funnies when trying to set up .htaccess in Apache for Win32. I was trying to set it up so that all access was allowed for a certain IP address, and any other IP would have a login prompt.

First problem is the .htpasswd file, need to force MD5:
htpasswd.exe -m .htpasswd guest

Then I needed to specify security for the directory in .htaccess, set up password access as normal, specifying the AuthUserFile and require valid-user.

Then comes the clever bit "Satisfy Any" - this instructs Apache to look for *any* of the criteria, rather than the default all. So if the ip address is correct, the user is not challenged for a password.

AuthUserFile "/path/to/htdocs/.htpasswd"
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Madly Secret Stuff"
Satisfy Any
require valid-user

Order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from localhost
allow from 127.0.0.1

What a weird week

I don't normally post about work, because that seems to be a good way of getting fired, but this week has been so bizarre it's worth a mention.

Before I went on holiday I was told I would continue on my current project until mid-November, when I would move onto another project.

Upon my return from a weeks holiday on Monday, I received an expected tap on the shoulder to tell me what I would be working on. I was unexpectedly moved onto another team, where I wasn't sure I wanted to be. However, I suppose I grabbed the nettle to see if it would sting, and it didn't feel that bad.

On Tuesday I was told the opposite of Monday's story, and that it wasn't supposed to be that way. That seemed like good news, no need for me to act, everything was working out!

On Wednesday I heard that Monday's plan was back on. My disappointment told me that I really didn't feel like more nettle-grabbing, and so I penned a note to senior management outlining the fact that I feel underutilised, which is bad for both the company and me.

Thursday brought a very uneventful day, I worked on the same job all day!

Today, however, saw a return to the flux. Good news. I'm not sure if Wednesday's email brought it about, but basically another change followed by the pre-holiday plan, all as it was in the beginning.

Hopefully next week will bring some continuity :)

Heating 1, Simon 1

I was going to call it a nil-nil score, but I decided on 1 all.

I finally installed the heating controller downstairs last night to replace the current timer unit. Now the heating in the house is soley controlled by the computer, which monitors settings and switches heat on and off as programmed.

I entrusted my warm water to it this morning, and the upstairs heating, and surely when I woke up (4 hours after going to sleep) the LED was on, and the room and water were warm.

All looked rosey, until mid-afternoon when I received an irate call from another member of our household (who will remain nameless to protect her anonimity). The heating wouldn't go on! 1 point for the heating. My heart sunk. I thought I had done enough testing to ensure this couldn't happen. It was vital that this didn't happen. I spent the rest of my work day distracted, trying to analyse where the source of this problem could be.

When I got home I worked on it for another while, and I believe that problem is solved. I also spent some time tidying the user interface. Now I am happy, and all is working well - 1 point for me. That's 1-all in this round.

Panomagic

A couple of panoramic shots I took while we were out on our walk on Saturday.

The Nerd Test

Go on, try it!

My score :
"39% scored higher (more nerdy), and 61% scored lower (less nerdy).
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:Low Ranking Nerd. Definitely a nerd but low on the totem pole of nerds."

Not too nerdy afterall. Need to concentrate harder.

Ballintoy to Dunseverick to Causeway Walk

Today we embarked on an epic walk, starting at Ballintoy harbour, walking around the coast to Dunseverick Castle. We stopped there for a picnic, and then continued around the coast to the start of the Giants Causeway. It is a super coastal route, and there are many parts of it we would have loved to explore more, such as the secluded tin house in one of the stony bays. We couldn't put an exact figure on the milage, but estimates vary from 10-13 miles. We didn't walk the exact route we planned, and we took a few small detours for exploratory purposes, but this was the planned route : http://routebuilder.org/ru

More heating progress

After a week of work on the heating controller the software is working great, and I am really pleased with it all. With the software all working, and the hardware working on breadboard it was time to make some real hardware, in a 6th year school project fashion. So I got the drill and file out, and made up the controller. I think it deserves an 'A'.

I hate painting

It has to be done. Got a new coat on the front room today. All ready for the wooden floor. How come there's always another job???

Fireworks!

Another day of our holidays, nothing too exciting, just some painting, and other jobs around the house. In the evening we went to Coleraine where there was a fireworks display on, and it was pretty good. Sometimes these things can be pretty lame, but this one was actually very enjoyable. It was well co-ordinated, and they'd obviously put some serious cash behind it. Taxpayers money well spent :)

More destruction

What better way to start the week than helping out with a little more of the aforementioned destruction. Dad needed some help (although he wouldn't admit that), and so I decided to stay for the day to help.

Through the day there was much kangoing, and after grappling all day with the time change we had the steels in and the wall down. A good day's work.

Things are heating up

As anyone who knows me knows, I can be a bit of a nerd. As such it will come as no surprise that I am in the process of computerising our home central heating system.

At the start of last year I bought a VIOM, which is a computer based relay controller - basically automates the flicking of switches. With that I can write software to control the switching of the heating in the house.

The main goal of the project is a finer resolution of control over the heating, with a view to using less oil. Secondary benefits will be that it would be possible to control the heating from any PC in the house, and hopefully via SMS and IM too.

I bought the VIOM at the start of 2005, and managed to get round to starting the software in October 2005. Well, sometimes these projects need to rest for some time, and so it lay dormant until this week.

I began testing again, and have now got the basic software completed. Just needs some polishing. A lot of polishing.

Destuction!

Mum and Dad have started major work at the house, converting a less than hospitable utility room into part of their new kitchen.

The initial steps in this involve breaking down some of the current walls, to be replaced with new ones.

As it turns out our kids seem to have an apetite for destruction, and they wholeheartedly embraced the demolition of part of the wall.

Church Dinner

This year our church family has been celebrating the 350th anniversary of its life in Dunboe. There have been many, and varied events, such as the Flower Festival and our week of mission. Tonight was the final event, which took the form of a Church Dinner, where we as members of the Church could enjoy a meal together. We held it in our hall, bringing in outside caterers to prepare the meal, and they did a spectacular job. We had about 100 people who attended, and all I heard was praise for the meal. The Bible often talks of feasting and celebration, and that's something I think we don't do enough!

Shopping in Belfast

A relatively uneventful Saturday, we started with our customary late brekkie, and then headed off to Benone to see if the Kiters were having any luck generating pull with no wind, but they weren't.

After that we set out towards Belfast, where we had half a day's shopping (enough said).

See, told you it was uneventful.