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Sonos

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 21:24:00 +0000

So my first smart home "investment" was a new sound system for my new house. I was looking for something that would allow me to listen to my music in a way which reflected how I used my home and so a multi room system looked worth investigating.

After much research online I plumped for probably the best known name in this space, Sonos. Obviously there are a number of similar systems on the market, some of which have become available since I started "investing" in my system but as little as 18 months ago there weren't a huge number of choices.

Why a multi-room system? I picked this approach as I don't just listen to music in one place. I like to have music playing as I go about my chores, in the kitchen when I am cooking and then following me (and my food) into the lounge diner. Sonos offered a good entry point with their Play 1 speaker which allowed me to try out their system without breaking the bank (of course it is really addictive so you may find yourself, like me, buying quite a few speakers - but it does help spread the, not inconsiderable, cost).

The Sonos system revolves around their controller applications (which are available for various platforms) and I found the whole thing really easy to set up. It allows me to stream my digital music collection, radio stations and streaming music services (I ended up subscribing to Spotify as I was buying quite a few albums each month as I used the system more and more).

The ability to group speakers together so that I can have my music running in the ground floor rooms whilst my daughter has hers running upstairs; and then be able group all the speakers together when I am going around cleaning on my own means you can have the music you want where you want - all synchronised.

The Play 1 does have its limitations but I find the sound quality certainly good enough for most of the house and I have now added a Play 3 for one of the bigger rooms.

Other than the somewhat steep eventual investment, my only real quibble is the lack of connectivity. Sonos doesn't really work with any of my other smart home systems (this isn't quite true as I can do some limited things but you don't get anything like the full potential). I haven't yet felt the need to pair speakers but may be in the future...

My Smart Home Project

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 21:14:00 +0000

So why would anyone want a "smart" home? Well, I can only answer that from my perspective. What I am looking for is (a) something to make my life easier (saving time, reducing chores, that sort of thing), (b) something that actually makes me feel like this is the 21st Century (come on now, where's the increased leisure time and flying cars I was promised?).

In technology terms I am actually coming to this relatively late as smart home tech has been around for many years. But it's only that it is beginning (note I said beginning!) to be accessible and require a sensible level of time invested to make it work.

So each time I look for a "smart" gadget to add to my life I try to ask myself three basic questions:
(1) How is it going to make my life easier or better?
(2) How much is it and is it worth that much to me?
(3) Is it "cool" (yes, I used cool, which makes me old!)

A whole number of gadgets fall at the first hurdle as they are solutions looking for a problem. Some just appeal to my "ooohhh shiny" but are actually worse in many respects than doing things old school (simple is usually better than complex - the less there is, the less there is to go wrong!).

So my next few posts will take you through my smart home journey and allow me to share my thoughts and what I have learned so far.

Motors by the Moat

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 08:22:00 +0000

Earlier in the summer a few friends and I visited Leeds Castle when they had their Motors by the Moat car event. Here are a few photos (unfortunately only iPhone 5C):

A brace of Astons:

A blast from the past:

The Dark Knight's chariot (a replica anyway):

My favourite of the day, a Sussex Sportscar SS100:

TP Link Update

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 12:15:00 +0000

One of my original TP Link ethernet over power adaptors has given up the ghost. It is completely non responsive. The others two remain fine but it's a bit of a pain as I wanted to try a third to connect with one of the upstairs bedrooms which has rather inconsistent wi-fi reception. Since the budget won't stretch to upping the throughput to the next level I'm just going to pick up another two pack (with the new smaller design) and see how that goes.

More Ethernet over Power

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Since the first pair of TP Link Powerlink adapters had proved successful I decided to add a third to feed the new kitchen PC (more of that later).

I picked up another single adapter from Amazon and it arrived quickly and set up was an absolute breeze. Just plug the adapter into a vacant 3 pin socket, plug in the supplied ethernet cable and push the sync button for a couple of seconds on the new adapter and do the same for one of the existing ones. Hey presto all works.

It's still not as fast as full blown ethernet but it has improved the video streaming quality and reliability significantly - plus it's much easier to chuck files around the network.

Darling Buds Car Show 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:07:00 +0000

Pop Larkin's 1926 Rolls Royce

We visited Buss Farm for the 2012 Darling Buds Classic Car Show today and, despite the weather's best efforts, had a good day out. Here are a few more photos to give a flavour of the event:

Kent Air Ambulance

The Mainframe Computer (in the barn)

Military Vehicles

GMC CCKW

M35 Deuce and a half

Hot Rods

Some Earlier Classic Cars

Riley Kestrel

Ford Model A

MG TD

Some Jaguars

XK140

E Type (Series 3)

Mark 2

Land Rovers

Some Minis

MGs

Midget

MGA

MGC GT

Triumphs

Vitesse

TR6

GT5 Mark 2

Some Sporty Fords

Escort RS2000

Sierra XR4i

Capri 3.0S

Plus a couple of Lotus Cortinas

More Modern Classics

Fire up the Quattro!

VW Golf GTi (Hairdresser's Special?)

And Some Bikes

Dredd

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 15:23:00 +0000

As a fan of the character here's hoping this will be good when it's released in September...

Jolicloud

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:21:00 +0000

Way back in 2008 I picked up an Asus Eee PC as an experiment and had some fun messing about with it; however, it came a poor second as a usable device once the iPad came along. My other half has been using it ever since as her around the house web browsing device.

Unfortunately the netbook has been getting slower and slower, so I decided to try installing a new lighter OS on it to see how it would fare.

After some research I chose Jolicloud as it seemed to have the least hassle install and the features we needed. I downloaded the ISO and created a bootable SD card from it and then tried that on the Eee PC. All the hardware (microphone, sound, webcam etc.) seemed to work straight out of the box and so I installed it on the internal drive but alongside the original Xandros.

So far everything seems to be working pretty well and the machine is fairly zippy. I'll provide some updates once we have tried it out for a while in real life conditions.

Ethernet over Power

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:27:00 +0000

For some reason I can't manage to pin down my wifi router will not operate at 802.11n - it always finds some reason to drop down to b/g instead. This makes moving big files around a really slow process.

Not having ethernet cabling in our new house means I had one of four choices: (1) put up with slow wifi (frustrating but cheap), (2) buy a new wifi router (more expense and not guaranteed to fix the problem), (3) install ethernet cabling (not very straightforward and so probably rather expensive), or (4) try ethernet over my mains cabling.

I plumped for option (4) and picked up a set of TP-Link powerline adapters from Amazon.

They arrived today, came with a couple of short but useful ethernet cables and were an absolute breeze to set up. Obviously they're not as fast as proper ethernet but it's a significant improvement in both speed and reliability.

Blogsy Test

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Mon, 30 May 2011 10:53:00 +0000

I've been trying to use the BlogPress app on my iPad for some time now and, whilst it does allow me to post away from the PC, it is both frustrating to use and rather too crash prone for my liking. I spotted Blogsy and decided I'd try giving it a go as an alternative - so here's my first post using it.

A photo insert trial

Track through the trees

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:23:00 +0000

Track through the trees, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Bluebell Grove

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:05:00 +0000

Bluebell Grove, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Clematis

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Clematis 2, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Stream

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:02:00 +0000

Stream, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Blossom

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:58:00 +0000

Blossom, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Back to Photography (and this Blog!)

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:56:00 +0000

I've not posted anything on the blog for quite a while (although I have been busy on my wargaming blog - The Wargame Shed) but recently I decided to take a bit more interest in photography. I bought a Nikon D40 a couple of years ago and have been using it quite successfully for the usual family stuff and blog pictures but I wanted to try my hand at doing something a little more interesting. A long time ago I started to get interested in "proper" photography with my little Olympus Trip 35mm film camera - but the wind was rather taken out of those sails when my car was broken into and the camera, along with some other stuff, was stolen.

The D40 is an excellent introductory DSLR and has a very good Auto mode but it also has plenty of semi-auto and full manual settings to play with. So I got the camera manual back out and started reading it again. Now I am slowly working my way up from using it as little more than a point and shoot (but with better glass) and using some of the features of the camera. This will be a bit of a journey for me and I am sure it will be some time before I start producing anything really worth looking at but nevertheless I have decided to share it (assuming anyone is really interested!).

I will be posting the odd entry about my experiences with the camera and some of the photos I have taken. Hopefully this won't be too boring anyway!

Test Photo

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:49:00 +0000

Untitled, a photo by Whisperin' Al on Flickr.

Just trying out linking the blog with my Flickr account

Star Wars on your TomTom

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 08:42:00 +0000

First the big D:

and Master Yoda:

The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:03:00 +0000

Robin Hood

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:52:00 +0000

I rented Robin Hood last night with a little trepidation. Whilst I though Gladiator was fantastic, I had seen mixed reviews of this Ridley Scott / Russell Crowe pairing.

This film takes a grittier approach to the Robin Hood legend than some previous ones and certainly has some epic scenes but overall it just failed to capture either the magic or charm of some of the previous outings.

The story concentrates on Robin before he becomes an outlaw, starting with him as an archer in King Richard's army returning from the Crusades. The initial castle siege is reasonably well done but with some unnecessarily OTT elements (and the start of the fiddling with history - although this has come to be expected in this sort of film). Crowe goes on to reprise his Marcus Aurelius role (although with less depth). It moves through some entertaining story development and battles scenes to the climactic battle which was rather a disappointment in my view and then to a rather rushed ending.

It's not difficult to identify some of the main failings of the film:

Russell Crowe's accent - whilst this settles down a little later in the movie he can't seem to make up his mind which accent he is doing
The landing craft (knight) - I don't dispute that there were landing ships in medieval times but the design of these just jars too badly
Maid Marion as Joan of Arc - unnecessary and implausible
King John - lacked the appropriate depth and complexity

As you can probably tell this movie was a bit of a disappointment for me and given the material and budget I felt more could have been made from it.

BlogPress for iPad Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:34:00 +0000

Whilst overall the iPad still continues to impress, there are some niggles. The web browsing experience is good and the extra screen real estate over the iPod Touch makes all the difference - as I had hoped - and avoids all that pinching and zooming; however, there are some sites that just don't behave themselves as expected. Obviously the absence of Flash is one part of this - although I haven't missed the crashing - but there are other issues and Blogger has some of them. The most obvious is that the blog posting page doesn't work properly with the normal text entry box not accepting input - you can only do it via the HTML entry box - and scrolling within the boxes is somewhat challenging. Given that one of my proposed uses for the iPad was write as well as read blogs and that both of my blogs are hosted on Blogger, this presents something of a problem. Enter BlogPress...

BlogPress is a blogging tool that appears to cover most of the main blogging platforms - including Blogger - and seems to address my posting problem. It isn't a free solution - currently £1.79 in the UK App Store - but it seems to cover what I need along with photo and video posting (not that I can generate either of those from the iPad itself) along with Twitter and Facebook integration.

This is my first post using BlogPress so I clearly haven't yet had any chance to find its foibles as yet but as I continue to trial it I will keep you updated.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

First Weekend with the iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:19:00 +0000

So I splashed out and pre-ordered an iPad. It arrived on Thursday morning, a day earlier than expected, but since I was at work all day and then out in the evening I didn't have much of a chance to play with it. Fortunately, this being a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, I have since managed to get quite a few days with it and so I thought I would post my first impressions.

The device is pretty much as I expected, but then I already have an iPod Touch, so I had a pretty good idea what I was getting. "If you've got an iPod Touch, why do you need an iPad as well?" might well be a sensible question. The answer is simple, more screen real estate. I have spent lots of time with the iPod and, whilst I have been very pleased with it, the small screen has alway been very frustrating to use with a lot of websites. The iPad gives you so much more room (enough to avoid having to pinch and zoom on most pages) and is so much more responsive. The bigger screen also provides for a decent on screen keyboard too.

What about the lack of flash, I hear you ask. It's not been a huge problem for me as I was used to not having it on the iPod. It is a nuisance especially as some sites I would like to be able to use are flash based but it's not made the device unusable that's for sure.

The interface is familiar and easy to use and it is very responsive. The battery life is very good and some of the apps being released are starting to show what can be done with the device. Plus the BBC has updated the iPlayer site to work with the bigger screen too.

I am also using it as a PDF reader which is so much easier than having to print out the multitude of PDFs I have (and better for the environment and storage!). But I have yet to be sold on it as an eBook reader, not because it isn't capabable - it is - but more because I am yet to be sold on eBooks themselves.

So overall it has fulfilled my expectations and is proving to be extremely useful for the use cases I had already identified and that will only improve once more apps are released.

It certainly does have some significant limitations, no flash, no printing, limited connectivity, no camera etc but, whilst these would all be useful, none of them undermine the role I intended it for. If you are considering buying one you'll need to consider whether the same would be true for you.

Should I get an iPad?

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:10:00 +0000

I have been pretty pleased with my Asus EeePC netbook but there are a few niggling issues with it (speed) and there are some use cases it just doesn't work well for (PDF reading for example). Equally my iPod touch is extremely useful but the screen size really hampers its use for web browsing.

The new Apple iPad seems to fit right between these two devices. It's smaller and lighter than the netbook but has a decent sized screen to enable it to be useable for web browsing and PDF reading should be no problem. Plus all my existing iPod applications will work on it.

The big question is how much will it cost when Apple eventually release it in the UK (now slated for the end of April)?

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:04:00 +0000

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry (Unedited)

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Whisperin Al) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:20:00 +0000

Firstly, allow me to apologise for the fall off in the number of posts over the last couple of months. I've had so much going on that there has been very little time for surfing and blogging; and what little there has been I have focussed on my other blog The Wargame Shed. Sorry!

Secondly, may I wish you the very best for the festive season and a happy and prosperous 2010.

In case you didn't know the Hogswatch card above is by the fabulously talented Paul Kidby.