The McKenzies' Blog…

Well we are finally here in Scotland.. but not quite in Mull yet.  We departed Gav’s (M1BXF) house today about 1030 am.. a short stop at Huntingdon for some breakfast then it was anchors away and northward bound.  We had a very uneventful trip north.  Saw a couple of accidents on the way but nothing that effected us.

We arrived in Helensburgh at Gav’s folks house for the night.. we arrived about 1915hrs.  All in all not a bad trek considering all the kit we had in the Jeep and on the trailer.  I’ll provide pics of that later and post a link as well.

We had a great dinner “ruby murry” (Curry, it’s cockney rhyming slang haha) .. then a quick trip to the pub for a couple of drinks and finally back to the house.

We’ll set out Saturday morning about 10am for Oban where we are booked for a 1400hrs sailing of the ferry to Mull.  I should be able to post to more later if we have Internet.. if we at least have telephone and I get SMS messages out to Twitter and you can follow our adventures on my twitter page .. http://twitter.com/m1xzg, or check out things out on the CAMB-HAMS page.

Hope to get more post later on..

I’ve got a new mobile phone coming.. YAY!! .. the Blackberry 8800 was nice but it lacked soooo much it has been a very painful and trying year to say the least for me.  The new one has the lot, rumour has it there is even an optional bolt on kitchen sink too

T-Mobile MDA Vario III CoPilot Overview – Pay Monthly – T Mobile

I can still do all the Blackberry stuff as well.. the only thing I think I’ll be missing which will suck a bit is the Blackberry Messenger feature.. but I don’t know until I get it.  It would be a minor annoyance if that’s the case but oh well

More on this later once I actually have it in my hands.

It’s a bit techie for some maybe.. but if you need to mount an ISO Image (CD/DVD Image) as a drive in Windows then give this a go.. it’s free

XP: Small, Free Way to Use and Mount Images (ISO files) Without Burning Them – Tech-Recipes.com

I found this while looking around for some new podcasts/vodcasts to watch.

Urban Forest 2.0, come from KQED in San Francisco. I’ve been listening to their NPR mp3 stream for a few weeks.. it’s quite an entertaining broadcast covering pretty much much everything imaginable.

I’m not a tree hugger by any means but I do like green space. One thing that really impressed me when I moved to the UK was how much green space they have in their cities, towns and villages. Every village it seems has a “village green”.. these are usually lined or ringed with trees along with a large area of grassy area. In a lot of villages they will have fairs or carnivals come and setup in these greens, as well as they will hold local events in them. You will have no doubt seen a number of pics from events we’ve been to in Cottenham on it’s village green.

KQED have a story about a new database that is trying to catalogue every tree in and around San Francisco, a monumental task to say the least. They’ve then stuck this on the net for all to access. From the KQED website they have the following to say.

In the past, San Francisco’s long-term urban forest planning was hindered because there was no way to share information, much less get the community involved. That’s all changed, thanks to a significant partnership effort between Friends of the Urban Forest, the City and County of San Francisco, and Autodesk. By working together and leveraging new technology – MapGuide Open Source – the project team has created an Urban Forest Map, which digitally pinpoints the location of each tree, maintains tree data in a consistent database, and offers web access to the tree data – key for maintenance and planting efforts. The community can get involved by posting photos and stories about their own trees that they plant and map online. With the launch of this collaborative effort and the support of the Mayor’s Office, a critical step has been taken to move San Francisco’s urban greening efforts forward.

Check out the video:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Europe clears mobiles on aircraft

Well, this both good news and bad news at the same time.  The good news is something that pretty much everyone has known for years, using a mobile phone on a plane won’t actually crash it!!  The bad news however is now you’ll have to put up with those ignorant self-absorbed and self-important so-and-so’s who just have to talk as loud as they can into their phones… As terrible was it was to travel on “the tube” in London for several years to and from work, the one thing that was nice was there were no phones ringing and people bleating away into them.

I can only assume that airplanes will have to follow what has been done on trains already, and that is to provide “quiet” zones where no phones or even loud music through headsets is permitted.

Given the technology that will be used is to have a micro-cell on the plane which talks to satellite then down to the ground, you know the cost will be excessive for casual chats.  Leading to suggest that most likely it will be those in Business/First Class most likely to use it.  That being the case I’m up for building a proper wall built between those classes and the masses so we don’t have hear them.

Also, as the article suggests it will also lead to data services coming as well (perhaps at more reasonable rates).