I have been cycling into Lewisham this week and getting the train from there. Today I got into work at a record time of 8:00am. I left the house at 7:45am, took the 7:52 to Waterloo East and then finally caught the 8.20 to Reading.
I had a mixed day at work. Not very productive due to a variety of laptop issues and network problems. I left with Shelley at around 4.30pm glad to be shot of the day.
I arrived home at the respectable hour of 6pm. The builders have fitted the bannisters, the lights in the shower and the power sockets. Also some very ugly fire doors have arrived. I will need to have a word with Joe to see if we can upgrade them so that they look like the doors in the kitchen.
Jake again had a ‘sluice’ in the shower to clean off the dust he accumulated after playing on the landing. I let Jake choose his stories again this evening. It went something like this:
Me: “Why are frogs slimy?”
Jake: “That’s a book for grownups!”
Me: “Tyrannosaurus Drip?”
Jake: “Too scary!”
etc etc
In the end he settled on a nice Thomas story called “Thomas down the mine” :-).
Up until last Friday you couldn’t even tell that the builders were in most of the time, except for the bangings and clangings going on overhead. It all changed on Friday. I was sitting in the lounge coding on the laptop when I heard an almighty crash. I went into the hallway and saw a great cloud of dust coming down the stairs. Moments later Joe came down to apologise. One of the other guys had put his foot through the ceiling. Later on they started to install the stairs which involved lots of “to me, to you” chatter.
To give them credit the guys stayed on till well after 6pm to get the stairs sorted. The house was left covered in dust even after the builders had cleared up. I spent the evening mopping and generally making upstairs into a habitable condition.
Today the builders were back and again the dust enveloped everything. The stairs are fixed into position now and look very nice. The two rooms are very spacious. I am looking forward to decorating and getting them looking the way we want to.
I have spent this evening again mopping and hoovering. Poor Jake’s bed and duvet were covered in dust so I spent ages cleaning his room first. I started by opening the windows even though a torrent of rain was falling outside. Gradually though I cleared and wiped and hoovered the dust away.
Jake had a nice long bath and then we had a nice story-time together. He is such an angel at the moment.
We have had a Siberian weather front come in from the north and cause chaos in south-east england. According the to weather records this has been the heaviest snowfall for 20 years.
It all started on Sunday night. I looked out of our bedroom window at around 9pm and was surprised to see a thick blanket of snow covering the road. I took some video footage to record it for posterity. In the morning I checked the train website and was unsurprised to see that all trains from Ladywell AND Lewisham had been cancelled.
The road outside our house had not been gritted and those cars on the road had a tough time getting up Vicars Hill. A couple of cars got stuck and needed a push to get up the hill. I didn’t see any accidents which was a relief considering the conditions. All bus services were cancelled throughout the London area(something not even the Luftwaffe could do). This, and the lack of cars created an usual and rather pleasant quietness to the surrounding area.
I worked from home and was jealous to hear the others heading off to Hilly Fields to play in the snow :-).
I woke at around 1.30am last night hearing strange noises coming from the loft. First there were loud thumps. Then these morphed into pitter patter noises followed by more clanks and bumps. Outside, the wind was howling and the rain was pouring down.
I lay there for a while but couldn’t get back to sleep. After a while I got up and had a mooch around. It seemed the wind was knocking something up in the loft which caused the knocking noise. The pitter patter could have been squirrels or more likely a bird trying to get out of the rain. I had visions of the rain pouring through the big hole in the roof where the tarpaulin had blown away. I checked the spare room but there didn’t seem to be any leaks or water damage. Satisfied that all was well, I closed the doors and went back to bed were I sank into a deep sleep :-).
While cycling down O.K.R I heard a crash and a tinkle on the road behind. I thought oh dear some poor unfortunate soul has dropped something on the road. I thought nothing more of it until I got home and saw that my back light had fallen off. I’m not too gutted about it because I have been thinking of getting a brighter light but I am gutted because I have lost two of my hybrio batteries.
Anyway I have just charged up the credit card with a new purchase. The item in question is a Blackburn Mars 4.0 which is a real eye burning rear light.
Today was the second loft payment. The guys have been great and have just finished cutting and laying the floor joists. All the metalwork is now bolted into place too. The speed of the next stage hinges on the weather as it needs to be dry because they will start knocking out the roof to accommodate the dormer.
The weather couldn’t have been worse on Sunday and Monday. We had high winds and torrential rain. Unfortunately the tarpaulin covering the hold in the roof was not up to the job and we had some leaks in the spare room and though to the kitchen. Now there are unsightly brown stains on the ceilings of both rooms.
Amy has just had her interview for voluntary probation work. It was a nightmare getting to the station because there was a signalling problem causing the trains to stack up at the entrance to London Bridge. In the end she arrived red-faced about half an hour late. The interview went well though and she thinks she is through to the next part. This will involve a weeks assessed training. If she passes the assessment then she will be called in for a second interview. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
I have been playing with the T-Mobile G1 over the weekend. I am very impressed with the overall package. It feels sturdy in the hand and the touch screen is excellent. I dispensed with the manual and just got stuck in. The UI is very intuitive and within a few minutes of playing it you get an idea of what each button does and how to navigate around.
When you first switch it on you need to sign into your gmail account. If you don’t have one then you need to create a new one. Some people may be put off by this.
The handset has built-in wifi and GPS. You can connect to a wireless hub and use it for fast internet access. If you switch off the wifi antenna then android will use the phone network for subsequent internet access. Be warned though because both Wifi and GPS are power hungry and you will find that a fully charged battery will be nearly empty in a few hours.
The great thing about this phone is the seamless integration with Google apps. So if like me, you use gmail, maps, documents and calendar regularly then you will love this phone. Take the google maps application as an example. You can tell it to show your current location and then get directions from there. A large circle is shown if you are using the phone network to estimate your location but if you use the GPS then the positioning is much accurate and the circle is much smaller. To navigate around a map you simple slide your finger across the screen in the direction you wish to go. You can select satellite, traffic or street view modes just like the web browser version.
The web browser is nice but having seen the Iphone browser not quite as good. The browser supports javascripts but not Flash so you will find that BBC iplayer for instance does not work. Once you have opened a web page you can zoom in and out using controls at the bottom of the screen. In the corner is a magnification tool that lets you look around the page in detail and select the area you are interested in.
The physical window on the device is split into three virtual screens. To access a screen you slide your finger across, very much like the Apple iPhone. You can add shortcuts, applications or widgets to any of these screens. To move an item you press and hold it until there is a little buzz and the icon will appear slightly larger. When this happens you can move it around to a new location.
Android Market is a repository for third-party android applications. They are split into these categories :
Communication
Entertainment
Finance
Lifestyle
Multimedia
News and Weather
Productivity
Reference
Shopping
Social
Tools
Travel
Demo
Software Libaries
When you download an application android tells you which parts of the system it is allowed to ‘touch’, such as internet access or system settings. You can assess an application by looking at the number of times it has been downloaded and it’s rating. You can also look at the comments posted by other G1 owners who have downloaded the application.
So what applications have I found handy?
Power Manager – Alters the phone settings based on events such as battery low, battery powered, computer powered(via USB), browsing mode(keyboard open), initial settings(settings when the application was installed). Each event is configurable so for instance when the battery is less than 20 you can specifiy that the GPS, wifi, Bluetooth and cell location is turned off and the screen is dimmed. A brilliant application and one that replaces a gap in the standard Android OS.
The Weather Channel – Gives you weathers forecast based on your location using Google Maps. Each location can be saved once it has been setup. The forecast gives you the current, hourly, 36 hour and 10 day forecasts.
Toggle GPS – Allows you to quickly switch on/off the GPS. Saves you having to navigate to the settings menu.
Telegraph – Up to date news for the UK and the world. Come on BBC where is your offering!!!
Toddler Lock – Great if you have children. Locks ALL keys and plays tinkling bells and draws coloured shapes when the screen is touched or a button is pressed
Compare Everywhere – Turns the G1 into a barcode scanner. Once an item is scanned it connects to a database to get you the best prices. Very clever idea. If an item doesn’t exist you can add it.
My Maps Editor – A Google offering that allows you to edit your maps
Finally here is my list of likes and dislikes. I hope this mini-review helps you!
Jake has a new favourite DVD, namely Mamma Mirror(as he puts it). He now sings the lyrics to Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia. Evidently he has also been studying the dancing as he now tries to reenact the spins and arm movements. Angel! Jake is back on form after his little ‘wobble’ and is again an absolute sweetheart. I went through a stage a couple of weeks ago when Jake was battling everything during his bedtime routine. He didn’t want to go upstairs, didn’t want to drink his milk, didn’t want to brush his teeth etc. etc.
Now he still battles(he is a toddler after all) but he is much calmer. Last night we read a couple of Thomas stories from his Annual and then learned to count with his jigsaw train book.
Last night on the the way home I did something a little naughty. I was bombing up the Old Kent Road trying to catch an LCC member as I approached a set of traffic lights.
Now as far as I am concerned the lights were changing from amber to red as I passed but I supposed I could have stopped in time, just. Mr LCC member saw it another way and shouted “RED LIGHT” as I flew past. This spurred me on to crank the pedals even faster in a case I incurred more of Mr LCC’s wrath(luckily I didn’t).
I have to say 99% of the time I stop at red lights while others gaily cycle past so I don’t feel too bad about my lack of judgement in this particular instance. Unlike Mr Knob Singlespeed who just about jumped every red light on the O.K.R. Yes I know you guys have only one gear and it makes your “poor leggy weggies” ache when you have to keep stopping and starting at traffic lights but come on, this is the price you pay for being a fashion victim surely. Have some balls guys! They are just scared because they will always be beaten by us gearies at the lights ;-).
