Author: sven

Links – Mon Jul 16 2007 09:10AM

Latest shared items from my Google Reader account:

Opera Mini 4

Opera Mini 4 for Java capable devices is out in beta. It features a lovely zoom out overview of websites, so I can see the whole of bbcnews.com on one screen (you click the area of interest to zoom in).

Downloads at www.operamini.com

Packaging

Sometimes the product doesn’t warrant the packaging… yesterday I received a Micro SD card from Expansys. These things are tiny – in the photo below the card is next to a UK 5p coin (must be just over 1cm diameter?) and it packs a whopping 2Gb.

The real astonishment is the size of the package, which the card is sitting on: a full size Jiffy bag designed for A4-size contents. Putting the two next to each other really demonstrates the difference in size (100fold at least, I’d reckon)

Granted the card came with an SD adapter (unexpected bonus), a bunch of leaflets and the delivery note, but considering the size of the item it does alll seem a little excessive.

As it happens, I’m not about to rush about and accuse Expansys of single-handedly ruining the environment – I laughed when I saw it… but other people might feel differently.

Comment Spam

Thanks to the continuing stream of commentspam and a particularly heavy attack last night I’ve switched on mandatory registration for comments. This is something I really didn’t want to do, but until I can investigate other solutions it will stay in place.

Back

I’m back from the canals, refreshed, reinvigorated and slightly wet. Although if I never see another duck again it won’t be a bad thing!

I have an assortment of notes, pub reviews and other bits & pieces, plus numerous photos to sort through. Once I’ve got these together I’ll bung something online.

A passing thought

“…given the inevitable claims that most floods are in some way linked to Global Warming, I can’t help but notice that SUV drivers are the ones least affected by floodwater…”

Trent Closed Again

Apparently the Trent crossing at Alrewas is closed again, hardly a surprise considering the amount of rain we had. We made it through last night thank goodness and moored up past th crossing (it was strong then).

The Waterscape mobile website appears to have nothing about the closure – it didn’t have anything last time during the 2 day closure. They may have just shut it this morning so there could be some delay in updating, but what is the general opinion abou Waterscape’s mobile update service? Is it normally good or do they tend to take a while to update?

Rugeley

We’re off the Four Counties, having covered it in six or so days. For the record – no speeding either! Some of the days included up to 12 hours engine time and we made good progress through Heartbreak Hill (a set of 29(?) locks in all) in the end with quite favourable traffc and friendly boatspeople ahead of us who’d leave the locks to flood or empty as needed.

Harecastle Tunnel is an interesting little adventure – although I have to admit to being a little bored of it at times! There’s only so much excitement you can get from being in a tunnel for over half an hour … although the Harecastle does have a few entertaining tricks, such as the exit portal doors closing as you approach and the large extractor fans booming through the tunnel to remove engine fumes. I’m hoping to have some nice short time lapse photos of this as soon as I get them on a PC

Finally, since we did the Four Counties so quickly we’re now ahead of schedule to return to Shardlow Wednesday afternoon, so we’re taking things a bit easier.

Last night we stopped in Stone – nice little town just outside Stoke on Trent. That was good but difficult to find a good mooring point anywhere near the town.

Today we travelled to Rugeley – yet to explore the town here but might do so tomorrow morning.

Thankfully we’ve been blessed with slightly nicer weather. Enough even to have a barbeque this evening, although the heavens have opened tonight.

The Trent at Alrewas is reported to be okay, and we ran parallel to it this afternoon & it looked reasonable. The Environment Agency website has no flood warning in force so fingers crossed for an easy passage back.

My posts have been a little intermittent at times but I’m hoping to collect my posts, the cruise log and photos after I get back, including decent reviews of the places we stopped at.