Articles and advice on cycling, technology, home efficiency and more - 2006

Sub-£300 Digital Cameras

Photography 04 Dec 2006

The features I'm looking for: Compact (light and slim) High quality optics Good at close-up shots (sub-10cm) Tough construction High number ...

The Planning Application

Wind Turbines 03 Dec 2006

North Norfolk District Council Planning Guidance To make an online application we use the Government's Planning Portal, with a Walkthrough ...

Artin Slot-Car Racing

Fun Stuff 26 Nov 2006

This system is a budget version of Scalectrix, and is actually quite hard to keep the cars on the track. We started off with a basic set (figure ...

What LCD TV To Buy?

House and Home 25 Nov 2006

Mum wants a new TV, with built-in Freeview, to replace her ancient 20" CRT model. She's had a look at a few, and has decided that a 26" widescreen ...

Bike It! Scheme

Bike Shelters 23 Nov 2006

Promoted by Sustrans, Bike It! is a nationwide scheme which aims to increase the number of young people cycling to school and on other journeys ...

Site Survey

Wind Turbines 23 Nov 2006

Well, our man from the Mark Group came and was satisfied with the location and aspect of the proposed wind turbine. There were a few caveats ...

Getting your Windsave Site Survey

Wind Turbines 22 Nov 2006

Have things gone a bit quiet with your Windsave Wind Turbine order? They had for us. We had been told that we would know of our site survey ...

Can't Mount NTFS Drive

Linux Solutions 20 Nov 2006

I want to mount the old XP (well, Vista) partition in my system. If I try: mount -t ntfs /dev/md0 /xp I get this error: mount: unknown ...

I used the wrong partition for the Linux Boot Loader!

Linux Solutions 20 Nov 2006

I have Windows Vista installed on the main (RAID SATA) drives. When I installed FC-6 on a spare 30GB IDE drive, I think it put its boot loader ...

Norwich Winter Regional Event

BMX 20 Nov 2006

Just a couple of photos of our 7-year-old Dan taking part at the fantastic Norwich track. We'd have had far more if it wasn't for bad planning ...

Can't Mount SMB Drive

Linux Solutions 19 Nov 2006

I want to mount the drive on our Windows 2000 PC, but the usual mount format (smbfs) doesn't work. Apparently what you need to use instead ...

Pay As You Drive Insurance

Family Car 05 Nov 2006

We currently have our car insured with Norwich Union, and decided to ask them to quote for their new Pay-as-you-Drive scheme. We have a low ...

Bike Lights Order

Bike Maintenance 16 Oct 2006

This is my order from UK Bikestore, mostly for the Topeak light: REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST TMS012 ...

BMX in Norwich

Cycling 16 Oct 2006

We went to Sloughbottom Park in Norwich this evening, for one reason: the BMX Track meet. There's a fantastic track there, with around 500 yards ...

Finding Nemo

Films 12 Oct 2006

Finding Nemo Highly enjoyable Pixar/Walt Disney animation that is suitable for all ages.
Not forgettting Bruce, the vegetarian shark ...

An Alternative to the Cougar

Child Trailers 12 Oct 2006

We were in Norwich recently and came across a familiar-looking child trailer. Sure enough it was a Chariot, but was actually the Captain model ...

Craphone Warehouse: Free Broadband

Internet Access: UK Broadband 12 Oct 2006

The Carphone Warehouse isn't just a mobile phone retailer; it also offers a landline service, called TalkTalk, through the BT network. It has ...

The Broadband Resource

Internet Access: UK Broadband 12 Oct 2006

Here's a useful site that covers all types of terrestrial broadband: SDSL, ADSL and Cable. The Broadband Resource concentrates on exchange broadband ...

Norwich ABC Open 25 mile (B25/24C)

Time Trialling 08 Oct 2006

Sunday 8 October 2006 This was a cool but sunny and calm morning, with temperatures and breeze rising slowly. Road traffic was quite light ...

Eastern Counties Newspapers Clippings

Eastern Counties Newspapers Clippings 07 Oct 2006

Eastern Counties Newspapers Clippings 1996 15\02\1996
28\02\1996
10\07\1996
17\07\1996
...

Expensive Sofa

House and Home 07 Oct 2006

It needed a new home, without rough and careless children in it, so we had to sell Julii's Mom's couch. Hopefully it will have a more genteel ...

Norwich ABC '10 (B10/44)

Time Trialling 07 Oct 2006

Conditions were sunny and mild (around 16°C), but a brisk westerly breeze took the edge off the times.

Couple of Good Jokes

Time Trialling 07 Oct 2006

Saturday morning time trial, Fred's going balls out - it's obvious he's on to smash the club record. Suddenly a funeral procession appears ...

Windsave Price Reduction

Wind Turbines 07 Oct 2006

Here is an email sent today, from Windsave: Windsave are delighted to announce that we will be reducing the original price quoted to you for ...

B10/43 Results

Time Trialling 30 Sep 2006

This was my first '10 in over eight years, and I struggled round on an over-geared (52x13) fixed wheel. I managed a 23:05, which is well off ...

Carbon Monoxide Detector

House and Home 23 Sep 2006

After the horrendous news today of five people being taken to hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisining, we decided to buy a carbon monoxide ...

Distributed Generation Systems 2006

Sustainable Living 10 Sep 2006

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The UK Government aspires to generate 20% of UK electricity from renewable energy sources by the year 2020. In practice, ...

New Bits for Time Trialling

Time Trialling 07 Sep 2006

I've just received my order from Ribble Cycles. I ordered it on Sunday, so a 4-day turnaround isn't bad. DescriptionPrice EachQuantityTotal ...

Watch your skewer!

Child Trailers 02 Sep 2006

We had a real problem with the chariot hitch on this mountain bike. The bike has forward-facing dropouts, and the wheel would frequently pop ...

Explorer misbehaving

Windows Vista 30 Aug 2006

I like to use the folder view to move around the drives and folders, so I'm always opening one folder on the left, closing it, opening another ...

Used to Alt-Tabbing? Good luck!

Windows Vista 30 Aug 2006

If you regularly use Alt-Tab to switch between Windows, you're in for a shock with Vista. The display of windows is actually much improved ...

Adding a Window to your Garage

House and Home 09 Aug 2006

This isn't necessarily as straightforward as it seems. We'd like to put a window in right next to our oil tank. Our local Building Control ...

Eastern Country Time Trials

Time Trialling 04 Aug 2006

The list of Time Trial Open events is at the RTTC site. CC Breckland is hosting the National 12-Hour event on 6 August, and after that it's ...

Order with Wiggle.co.uk

Sports Gear: Under Test 26 Jul 2006

This is an order from Wiggle. They gave me a 5% discount, plus a £5 voucher. Watch out for their premium delivery - it's added on automatically ...

The UK Government's White Paper on Energy

Sustainable Living 11 Jul 2006

Alistair Darling of the DTI today released The Energy Review, looking at energy production issues in the short to medium term. It includes the ...

Insulating Your Home

House and Home 02 Jul 2006

There doesn't seem to be a practical eco-friendly one for walls, but we could do some sheeps wool in our loft. Mineral wool is considered the ...

Frustrating Privileges

Windows Vista 01 Jul 2006

Getting confused and frustrated with the Windows Vista Privileges? I discovered that (I think) you need to reboot after you change your security ...

PHP Coalface

Computer Programming 22 Jun 2006

Here's the main RSS feed from phpdeveloper.org: Also from phpdeveloper.org, here are some Security links:

Maps in Maps

Google Maps API 22 Jun 2006

Here's a neat feature in a google map - Popup maps within the map! Click on one of the markers and you'll see what I mean. This is useful for ...

Rail Layout Software

Model Railways 22 Jun 2006

Span Software has some layout design software called WinRail 7 that supports 'all scales and gauges'. It runs on all versions of Microsoft Windows ...

Windsave are Taking Orders

Wind Turbines 21 Jun 2006

It's now mid-June, and Windsave have been accepting orders for their ES1000 1KW domestic wind turbine for a few weeks now. They say that they ...

Orange Broadband

Internet Access: UK Broadband 21 Jun 2006

Another phone provider is offering 'free' broadband - it's Orange, and you have to subscribe to one of their monthly mobile phone contracts. ...

Editable Google Maps

Google Maps API 20 Jun 2006

Here is an example of a gmap application that allows you to set your own markers on the map. The author of this app is Greg Stoll, and he ...

AJAX in Vista

Windows Vista 19 Jun 2006

The IE Blog says that to have your cross-browser AJAX work better with IE7, you really should be invoking the native XMLHttpRequest (the cross ...

Programming with the Vista Sidebar

Windows Vista 19 Jun 2006

I couldn't believe it when I saw this: Microsoft's Gadget Development Overview. A gadget is a useful mini-application on the desktop (in the ...

Windows Vista Download

Computing 11 Jun 2006

Windows Vista Beta is available for download from Microsoft. Amazingly there doesn't appear to be any sort of disclaimer, or notes about how ...

Our Little HornbyTrain

Model Railways 11 Jun 2006

Here is the newest of our locos, an LSWR model which was a present from my Mum last year. It's a simple little engine, but very powerful. In ...

Rainwater Harvesting

Sustainable Living 09 Jun 2006

We've just found a company that does rainwater harvesting - RainHarvesting.co.uk, part of The Green Shop. The system uses rainwater for washing ...

Unknown Firefox Master Password

Computing 05 Jun 2006

Well, this was a strange problem when I installed Firefox - a mystery Master Password. I'd installed Firefox and had it copy settings over from ...

Folgate House Abseilers

Sponsored Abseil 03 Jun 2006

There were a few descenders from Folgate House (the building in North Walsham where I used to work) - pictured here are Ron and Jo. Troy also ...

John Abseiling

Sponsored Abseil 03 Jun 2006

After a long wait I went into auto-pilot and climbed over the parapet, ignoring my better judgement. The descent was quite slow and very unnerving ...

Chris Abseiling

Sponsored Abseil 03 Jun 2006

Chris knew this wasn't going to be easy, but he went for it anyway. Made a nice smooth descent, but knew that he was only going to do this once ...

Don't always blame your ISP!

Internet Access: UK Broadband 02 Jun 2006

I had a connection problem tonight, with my ADSL. Got an ADSL connection, but no PPP. I had this the other morning and got a full connection ...

Baby Blackbird has Plummeted

Animals 02 Jun 2006

The nest has fallen out and two of the three baby blackbirds have died; here's the survivor a few days later, still being fed like crazy by his ...

Low Carbon Project Planned

Sustainable Living 02 Jun 2006

The IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) is examining the possibility of upgrading the building’s thermal performance, reducing ...

Home Insulation Grants

House and Home 31 May 2006

If you want to get your house insulated, or just want someone to check what you need, go to the Energy Saving Trust Grants Page. Here are the ...

Roof Bars for the Passat

Family Car 29 May 2006

Now that the Passat has proved its worth, we need to fix some roof bars to it so we can carry all our bikes. Roof Bars The car is a '96 N, and ...

At the Bure Valley Railway

Model Railways 29 May 2006

This is the Model Railway Association East Anglia Group) in action, and the Aylsham Station on the Bure Valley Railway. There were lots of fine ...

Please Donate!

Sponsored Abseil 27 May 2006

Thank you for your pledge, . Check back here after June 3rd to see if I managed to complete the abseil! I'm doing this abseil in a ...

Network Infrastructure

Computing 22 May 2006

Introducing Raritan's Command Center NOC: Integration of Systems, Security and Network Management with Secure Remote Access. Designed to keep ...

Tadpoles with Legs

Animals 21 May 2006

The tadpoles in the fishtank are growing fast, and most have developed back legs. They appeared to be trying to eat each other, which we took ...

Baby Blackbirds

Animals 21 May 2006

This nest is right outside our back door, overlooking the sandpit. Remarkably, the children don't know about it. Mother bird holds her nerve ...

Bike Reservation on a Train

Cycling 09 May 2006

To make sure you get a space for your bike on a train, call 0845 6007245 the night before. I haven't tried this yet, but assume that this booking ...

Domestic Oil Quotes

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 05 May 2006

The time has come to fill our tank. Here are the quotes we got, for a 2000L fill: Total Butler 35.19p/L Goff 33.75p/L, dropped to 33.5p ...

Oil Suppliers serving Norfolk

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 02 May 2006

TOTAL BUTLER Wymondham Lenwade Oil Depot Stanfield Road Wymondham Norfolk NR18 9QY Tel: 0845 7 240241 Fax: 01953 857322 Email: wymondham ...

DIY Wind Pump

Wind Turbines 01 May 2006

What about making your own wind-powered device? YourGreenDream.com features a section on carving your own wooden wind turbine blades.

Change of ADSL Provider

Internet Access: UK Broadband 01 May 2006

I've decided to migrate ADSL Providers. Having been with PlusNET for the last couple of years, their service has generally been good. More ...

Spare Parts for a Dawes Galaxy

Bike Maintenance 28 Apr 2006

I've just gone through the trauma of replacing virtually all the drivetrain on my Dawes Galaxy, and decided that it would be sensible to note ...

UK Government Budget 2006

Wind Turbines 28 Apr 2006

Gordon Brown's budget includes a handful of green measures, and one is aimed at renewables generation. From the speech: I can also announce ...

Windsave Turbines

Wind Turbines 28 Apr 2006

They aren't taking orders until May, with a view to start doing installations in July. She said you can sell back excess (they call it "spillage ...

Low-Carbon Grants Explained

Wind Turbines 23 Apr 2006

The Energy Saving Trust has a low-carbon funding FAQ that outlines how the funding will be allocated and when applications will be accepted. ...

Earth Day

Sustainable Living 22 Apr 2006

Today is Earth Day! It's on the March Equinox (when the night and day are approximately the same - 12 hours each), and is a time to think how ...

Virgin Wines - Tasting Notes

Wine 22 Apr 2006

  Araldica d'Aria Gavi 2004
(Italy)   Style: Fragrant but Dry Whites   ...

Wind Intermittency not a Problem

Wind Turbines 21 Apr 2006

The UK Energy Research Centre has published a report on the costs and impacts of intermittent renewable energy such as wind. It concludes that ...

Historical Chart

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 21 Apr 2006

This chart shows what you might typically pay retail for kerosene 28-sec fuel, starting from mid-July 2005. The blue line is the actual spot ...

Frogspawn in the Pond

Gardening 18 Apr 2006

It\'s now wriggling quite a lot, and will probably hatch out in a few days time. We don\'t have much spawn in the pond, and the pond water is ...

Spring is Here!

Gardening 18 Apr 2006

Here are a couple of nice daffodils, to remind us that Spring really is here.

Wroxham: Miniature Garden Railway

Model Railways 13 Apr 2006

There is a minature garden railway in Wroxham, and it is open to the public on the Easter Sunday and Monday. It's at Barton House, as shown ...

PHP Class for the Google Maps API

Google Maps API 13 Apr 2006

This looks interesting: A Google Maps API class for PHP. The example certainly seems to be exactly what you'd want from such a class.

What Router?

Internet Access: UK Broadband 09 Apr 2006

Puzzled about how to build a wireless home network? Here are some factoids and some jargon to get you started. You can easily have a wireless ...

Carphone Warehouse: Free Broadband??

Internet Access: UK Broadband 09 Apr 2006

The news is that Carphone Warehouse is set to announce a free broadband service for its Talk Talk (landline) subscribers. This announcement ...

PlusNET Network Usage

Internet Access: UK Broadband 09 Apr 2006

Over the last 48 hours, here is PlusNET's broadband traffic by usage type:
And here is the number of customers using the network ...

Higher Uplink Speeds

Internet Access: UK Broadband 09 Apr 2006

It's not just download speeds that are increasing... it's now possible to get over 800kbps upload speeds! For most people (just doing web browsing ...

Alba DAB Radio Reviewed

DAB Radio 07 Apr 2006

Here is the Alba DAB Radio, purchased from Sainsbury's for ?50. It was on offer for ?30 but we were too slow to get around to it. The radio ...

April: Family Outing

The Bure Valley Railway 07 Apr 2006

Even the Grandparents enjoyed it! We met up at Aylsham, took the train down to Coltishall, walked down to Wroxham and caught the train back ...

Oil Quotes Just In

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 06 Apr 2006

From the Norwich depot for emooil.co.uk: Product: Shell Thermo (Standard grade 28 sec Kerosine) Quantity:1500 Litres Pence Per Litre Price ...

Springtime Sowing

Gardening 02 Apr 2006

Here are my sowing efforts so far this year: Sweet Peas and Dahlias (harvested from last year's plants) sown in pots, in plain garden soil. ...

A Baby Robin

Animals 29 Mar 2006

One hatched in the conservatory.

Babies being Born

Guinea Pigs 29 Mar 2006

Here is our lovely guinea pig Ginger having a litter of babies.

Ginger and Pepper at their finest

Guinea Pigs 29 Mar 2006

On Julii's lap
On Danny's lap

An Owl.

Banham Zoo 29 Mar 2006

What sort of owl is this then?

Connecting to the Grid

Wind Turbines 28 Mar 2006

Apparently you need an approved G83 grid connect inverter (such as two SMA Windy Boy WB-3000 3.0kW grid connect inverters). Here's the website ...

Wind Speed Map

Wind Turbines 28 Mar 2006

This map, based on data published by the DTI, isn't terribly helpful as it only shows average wind speeds. It also comes with these caveats ...

Saving Energy in the Home

Climate Change 28 Mar 2006

Energy Saving Grants: The Energy Saving Trust has all sorts of up to date information on energy saving and generation, including grants that ...

Sustainable Living - on BBC 2

Climate Change 28 Mar 2006

Here's the Programme's page. A couple in Cornwall attempts to convert a dilapidated farmhouse in several acres of meadowland to a system that ...

Joined-up Policy?

Climate Change 28 Mar 2006

Gordon Brown's budget the other day made almost no difference to climate change policy in the UK, either in the public or private sector. ...

Seals at the Sanctuary

Winterton Seals 27 Mar 2006

Four-month-olds

Winterton Seals 27 Mar 2006

These are due for release soon.

Winterton Turbines

Wind Turbines 27 Mar 2006

These aren\'t domestic turbines of course, but do show what can be installed on open land. Apparently the small ones are fifteen years old, ...

Venus Fly Trap

Gardening 27 Mar 2006

This little beauty will happily gobble up all your unwanted house-flies. The label warns you not to feed it artificially though (with flies ...

Boating at Eaton Lake

Radio Control 27 Mar 2006

This is in Norwich - a great big lake with a fine array of scratch-built craft wheeled out every Sunday morning.

Athlon 64 X2 Processor

Upgrading to 64-bit 27 Mar 2006

Here it is, two cores under one roof. As easy as usual to install, although the heatsink retention clip (made of flimsy plastic) was tough to ...

Drivers still using phones

Road Safety and Motoring 15 Mar 2006

This doesn't come as any surprise, but apparently a significant minority of drivers still use handheld phones for quick calls whilst driving ...

How Much Capacity?

Bike Shelters 15 Mar 2006

The number of bikes chained to the wire fence at our local primary school (population 340 kids) varies enormously over the seasons. On the ...

RAID on a Gigabyte K8NF9 Ultra Board

Computing 15 Mar 2006

Wanting to do the right thing with our new office PC, I opted for a Mirrored RAID setup (RAID-1) across two SATA-II 200GB drives. Not knowing ...

Digital Photo Review

Photography 15 Mar 2006

The best place to go for camera reviews is dpreview.com. It's for the US market, so all the camera prices are in US dollars ...

The Digital Experience

Photography 15 Mar 2006

We started off by buying a Minolta Dimage S304, reasonably priced and with glass optics. It was a 3Mpixel, 6x optical zoom camera driven off ...

Dual-lens Camera

Photography 15 Mar 2006

Wow, this is smart! The Kodak V570 Dual Lens Digital Camera is simliar in specification to the V530, but it was two lenses - one for regular ...

Domestic Oil June 2005

House and Home 15 Mar 2006

We've found ourselves running low on oil - that's domestic heating oil, or 28 second kerosene. We have what we think is a 2000L tank, and it ...

ITV Video Online

Computing 08 Feb 2006

Blinkx has released a video search engine based on ITV footage, and liberally paid for by advertising. It's at http://www.blinkx.tv/, but be ...

Mid-Budget PC Shopping List

Computing 04 Feb 2006

We've decided to splash out a bit on a higher spec computer than usual, to replace our aging P3-500 laptop, 13.1" screen and all. The processor ...

Free Audio Editor

Computing 03 Feb 2006

Audacity @ sourceforge.net - homepage at audacityteam.org

2005 Sowing Regime

Gardening 23 Jan 2006

February Time to start planting the seeds! The year has been unseasonably mild so far, so I'm going to take the risk and sow some vegetables ...

Gardening in Miniature

Gardening 23 Jan 2006

A colleague at work has let me in on a little fashion craze: The Pet Tree. It's a miniature plant that lives in a small jar, designed to tbe ...

Quality TV Corner Units

House and Home 13 Jan 2006

We're looking for a corner TV Unit that's big enough to house a regular stereo (30cm cube), a PC tower (20cm wide, 35cm tall, 40cm deep) and ...