the french connextion

Well that was fun wasn't it?

2009-08-15T12:16:00.003+01:00

So there we have it, our 2009 trip documented as we went with live pics and a couple of vids. It turned out to be quite a good experiment for mobile blogging while abroad.

Usual services will now resume over at my main site: http://richard.mackney.com where I will continue to checkout new mobile blogging services and let you know about it :)

Life at sea ... This ferry is empty!

2009-08-13T10:27:00.002+01:00

Last day on the beach

2009-08-12T22:14:00.001+01:00

Chimay blue for lunch?

2009-08-11T13:13:00.000+01:00

The local option

2009-08-09T13:11:00.000+01:00

8th August

2009-08-08T21:08:00.000+01:00

Beer by the pool on 12seconds.tv

Fermanville

2009-08-07T21:04:00.002+01:00

This is Barfleur ...

Le Grande Large

2009-08-06T07:40:00.001+01:00

Le Grande Large has all the facilities you would want on a campsite. I'll grab some photos soon, but here are some of the things that are always here:

Go for a swim in the outdoor pool
Take your kids into the outdoor kids pool
Play table tennis (ping pong)
Play pool
Have a drink at the bar
Have some food at the snack bar
Play boules
Pay to use their WiFi
Go to the beach
Swim in the sea

They also arrange daily events and bring things on site such as free bouncy castle for the kids, aqua aerobics, boules competitions and live music. With the site being so close to the beach you don't really need to get in the car, you can run down to the sea without a towel and run back to your pitch to get changed.

The people in reception are extremely helpfully and speak English if your French is rusty ;) There is a large toilet block with showers and pot washing facilities.

The local supermarket is called Super U and is litterally minutes away. It's pretty big and has everything you need.

Here is it's GPS location if you ever need to get here by satnav ...

Accuracy: 9 m

N 49.4944°
W 1.8442°
Altitude: 74.00 m

http://www.piurl.com/1ptf

-- Post from my iPhone using BlogPress

French Sunset

2009-08-05T22:05:00.009+01:00

Today, we went to the Super U around the corner, to stock up on food and drink for the second time! it's a fully stocked supermarket. We then spent the day on the beach and in the sea. The waves were massive and we managed to get some great bodyboarding in.

Here is a pic as the sun went down ... (from my iPhone)

D I S C O French styleeee on 12seconds.tv

4th August

2009-08-04T22:50:00.000+01:00

Today we went to Cherbourg. Nice town ...

2nd August

2009-08-02T17:18:00.002+01:00

Roaming into France

2009-08-01T22:00:00.004+01:00

Bonsoir ... I'm in France and wanted to jot down a few of my experiences with roaming data and costs.

As we sailed out on the ferry leaving Poole Harbour, the first thing I noticed was how far the O2 signal stretched. It seemed I could still twitpic at no extra cost (on the iPhone data bolt on) quite a long way away from land.

The second thing worth noting was that when the signal did die, the boat's own GSM mast kicked in and (voice) roaming was available during the full 4 hour crossing.

As I have Twitter setup to use the free SMS service, I was still receiving txt updates from the people I had selected to monitor (plus any DM's) I could also tweet by sending a reply to the SMS number - though I assume the cost of sending will be on roaming charges.

Although I have been informed that I would be paying for a proportion of the cost of any incomming calls when abroad, I have not read or been informed of any charges for incomming SMS?

Once we landed I got SMS messages from O2 detailing 35p for outgoing calls, 18p for incomming, 11p to send SMS and £3 per MB for data.

As most of you will know, the key thing is to turn roaming data off on the iPhone. There have been loads of stories of massive data bills when returning from holidays. The iPhone eats data and even does it without you knowing - so turn roaming data off when not in use.

When I fired up the netbook with the Three dongle I got a message that roaming data would be charged at £1.25 per mb. Much better than O2 but still pricey - especially if some application decides it needs to perform a background update!

You can buy a roaming data bolt on with O2 before you leave and this brings the price down. I think 50mb with O2 was £42. You need to reset your useage monitor and keep checking it to ensure you don't go over. I would also turn roaming off and on as required to ensure it's not left downloading upates or voicemail (you can get voicemail by dialing instead)

That being said, the iPhone is actually brilliant at conserving data once in an app. For example, the Facebook app is very light weight with no downloading of adverts or full pages of crap. You just get the important data. Twitter apps can be set to store avatars locally and only update the latest tweets rather than a full page refresh. Even Google maps has been excellent on data use - and being in an unknown location is a perfect opportunity to fully use the Local Search features. On the other hand I've found that using Safari on the iPhone is ripping through data as it loads full res pages for zooming into. Maybe there is a text only browsing app?

One thing I will say, is that I'm actually impressed with the ammount of notification and messages I'm getting about costs. Once apon a time you would be totally in the dark and just cross all fingers that it wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg when you got home (and it always did)

The other thing I was looking out for was WiFi hotspots. I found two signals on the site I'm on and have purchased 120 minutes for 6 Euros - the 120 minutes never expire so you just log off and come back on later. I think this is pretty good as some want a load of money for a 24hr slot when in reality, I can work offline and only login to post data or download email.

But for now, I'm writing this offline on the iPhone in landscape mode and will connect to roaming data and publish this with a minimum amount of data used. OK, it won't look fancy, but it may just be slightly informative? ;)

Au Revoir

-- Post from my iPhone using BlogPress

This is a cross posting to The Ammobox Project

When in France ...

2009-08-01T13:12:00.002+01:00

On the Ferry

2009-07-31T18:06:00.000+01:00

Arrived and setup. Can you see the sea? GPS location: http://bit.ly/c2hno

We nearly didn't make it

2009-07-30T17:38:00.005+01:00

We set off at 7am on Thursday and made good time traveling down the UK to catch the ferry. When we were about an hour away we heard a rumbling, I checked the mirrors and noticed a load of smoke and then saw the nearside caravan tyre fly off into the air.

I managed to get the car and van over to the grass verge safely - but we were in the New Forest and on a dual carriageway with no hard shoulder. In quick time we donned vests and took warning triangle down the road to wave vehicle over. The traffic was moving fast and it was difficault to get them to move over a lane. I jacked the van up and removed the spare wheel carrier however, the bolt holding the spare in place was rusted solid (The recent full service didn't spot this problem).

I phoned the recovery cover that I had in place. Amazingly they couldn't accept GPS co-ordiantes from my iPhone or TomTom so it took 15 mins to explain our location - not good.

The highway agency guys showed up which was a relief as large lorries were still not getting over and the van was rocking. They tried to help and were great. The Police arrived and they were great too. But we had to wait for recovey.

Recovery took an hour and a half to arrive then another hour to remove the spare wheel Carier and sheer the bolt - it really was stuck. These guys were great.

We got going again but had missed the ferry. We had already phoned to tell them and were allowed to re-book for the next morning for a fee. If you don't phone, it's classed as a 'no show' and you lose all your booking money.

We phoned around and booked a campsite nearby. A lovely CL site. Once at the site I used 'Google Maps Local' to search for 'tyres' and phoned around for the specific commercial tyre we needed. Once we found one in stock we went to fetch it using the directions provided by Google with the blowout in the boot. What would we do without the Internet?

The evening was spent in Poole harbour - a place we know from past holidays - it's an amazing harbour and had a dance festival on.

We have to get up at 6am, hitch up and catch the ferry leaving at 9am ... Wish us luck :)

-- Post from my iPhone using BlogPress

Current location

2009-07-29T12:50:00.013+01:00

Full link | Mobile Version

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Preparation

2009-07-27T22:19:00.003+01:00

It's getting close to the off. The van is now outside ready to be loaded.

The first thing I wanted to do was reduce some of the nose weight. I've changed the gas bottle for a full Calor lite unit. These are made of thinner metal to reduce the load. They also have a gas level indicator that should let you know when you are running low. I'm only taking one bottle, the hob has an electric plate and the Cadac BBQ is probably the only thing that uses much gas.

I've also removed all the curtains from the van. We have fly screens and full blinds - curtains are just cosmetic (and old fashioned) so they have been removed to save weight. Another item I've taken out is the front drawer and pull out table unit - I'll admit, this is a usefull item, but it's heavy and the space saved allows for a bigger bed at night!

The reason for all this weight saving is a combination of fuel savings and safety. The nose weight for the Honda CR-V is a healthy 100kg but that soon disappears. Loading the van evenly with the ideal nose weight and distribution of heavy items over the axle is key for a safe 'snake free' journey.

Anyway, that's it for tonight, here is a pic of the front cabin that certainly feels more spacious if nothing else ...

-- Post From My iPhone

Hang on a second ...

2009-07-21T15:50:00.002+01:00

Hold your horses, this trip hasn't even started yet!

Once we saddle up there will be some media posted .....

About the trip

2009-07-19T10:33:00.014+01:00

A travelogue written during the course of a trip to Normandy using mobile technology.

"A travel journal, also called road journal or travelogue, is a record made by a voyager. Generally in diary form, a travel journal contains descriptions of the traveler's experiences, is normally written during the course of the journey, and may or may not be intended for publishing" Source

Mobile Blogging Technology:

I'll be using a combination of the following iPhone applications depending on the bandwidth available (EDGE, 3G or WiFi):

BlogPress to write and edit entries and publish photo's direct from the phone to blogger
Pixelpipe to publish high res videos directly to blogger
Twittelator Pro to upload photos, compressed video and audio to twitter (Yfrog or Moby)
12seconds.tv for 12 second compressed video updates (via email)
TwitVid to upload low res video (also goes to Facebook)
AudioBoo to upload audio updates

Audio to Moby test

Other tools and services:

Toshiba NB100 Netbook
Pay As You Go 3G Three Dongle Pre-loaded with data
Onsite WiFi where possible
BT OpenZone WiFi account

Testing PixelPipe on 12seconds.tv

Find out more about Mobile Blogging

The outfit

2009-07-19T10:04:00.005+01:00

Abbey Freestyle 520SE

The route map

2009-07-19T09:27:00.000+01:00

View Trip to Normandy in a larger map