your man in Amsterdam

How to add a WeatherPixie to your Facebook Profile Page

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 12:45:00 +0000

WeatherPixie by Tamsin Bowles is a personalised graphical representation of meteorological conditions where you are. There are loads of pixies to choose from, some with remarkable dress sense. The weather information comes from a public database of airport weather stations so with any luck there's one not far from you.

WeatherPixie isn't available as a Facebook application (yet) but it's still relatively easy to add one to your profile page. Here's how:

Next to the Applications link in the left hand navigation, click "edit", then click "Browse More Applications" and search for an application called "HTML Box"

Add the application to your profile

Click "edit code" - this will display a textbox something like this:

In a new browser, go to http://www.weatherpixie.com and click My Pixie.

Use the dropdowns to configure your pixie the way you want it then click "Set my Pixie".

In the right hand navigation click "View HTML code for this Location".

A textbox should have appeared containing some HTML code. Select all the code and press Ctrl-C to copy.

Now switch back to Facebook, paste the code into the HTML Box application, like this:

<a href="http://weatherpixie.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://weatherpixie.com/displayimg.php?place=EIDW&trooper=27&type=C" width=124 height=175 border=0 alt="The WeatherPixie"></a>

Click Update

Click Edit Code again

Next comes the hardest part - you need to tell Facebook to keep updating the image as the weather changes. To do this, look on the second or third line of code and select all the code between these quotes: src=" ". Make sure all the code is selected but don't include the quotes, then press Ctrl-C to copy.

Click the link to "Add Media" in the top navigation

Scroll down and paste the copied code into the "Image URL" field at the bottom of the page. Then click Add.

The pixie should have appeared in your profile, if you use the example code above - it will look like the one at the beginning of this page.

Joost TV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 May 2007 09:50:00 +0000

you might have heard of Joost... the idea is to distribute TV shows to the masses using the internet. I haven't got an account yet so I'm not exactly sure how it works but I bet we'll be hearing lots more about this service in the next few months.

Right now it's relatively easy (if you're a nerd) to get whatever TV content you want over the internet... illegally. I think the idea of Joost is to make it even easier to get access to the same plethora of content legally and fairly cheaply. Joost (and others) are busy signing up programme makers as fast as they can:

iTWire - YouTube signs BBC, Joost signs JumpTV - the gloves are off

Joost is invitation only for now (a bit like Gmail). But don't worry if you haven't received an invitation; if you have a blog try creating a post with link to this site:

Fun Distraction: Joost Invitation Giveaway

The kind owner says he will send you a Joost invite if you post a link to his blog.

Well that's my post, I'll let you know if it works. Watch this space!

It's not all Heineken and hedonism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:39:00 +0000

Yes, we have been working pretty hard; not just in our jobs - Agata has been demanding plenty of attention. The hull took all winter to fix up, grinding, welding and painting. Here are some pics of her in the jachthaven (boatyard):

more photos

Plenty of work to do at home too, getting ready to plant this years crops. This is the worm powered composter we built for our balcony:

Here is the method we followed to build it

Georgie and Eileen came over for a visit in March with friend Stephen. As you can see from the pics, we spent quite a bit of time indoors:

more photos

To escape the gloom, Françoise and Ian took us all on trip - destination unknown. We were told to pick up tickets to Stanstead airport and await further instructions. Turned out we were heading for sunny Sicily. What an amazing place, we saw sun, sea and snow (on top of Mount Etna) and ate loads of great food. We almost missed our flight home becasue we couldn't find the airport. Turns out it had been renamed after messers Falcone and Borsellino, magistrates who were assasinated for sending down too many gangsters.

more photos

It even got a bit warm in Amsterdam by the time George and Bernie came over to visit later in April and we took Agata out for the first time this year:

more photos

I realise it's been ages since I updated this site so I'll just skip the details and let the pics speak for themselves:

David & Karen's wedding

more photos

Queen's Day

more photos

Ciaran's christening

more photos

House in Aigrefeuille

more photos

Claire's Hen Night

more photos

Owen & Claire's wedding

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Nick and Mel visit Amsterdam

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Cruise on the river shannon

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Mel's artwork on Agata

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Balcony Crops

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Flaine 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:44:00 +0000

more photos

movies
Linda on day one
Linda on day six
Dom
Taz
Birds
(you'll need Quicktime to view the movies)

christmas and new year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 14:07:00 +0000

photos
christmas eve
christmas day
new year

movies
bernie's dance
happy new year
bring your own fireworks
man blows up boat
man blows up boat again
anarchy

it's tricky trying to make these into a coherent story. it began sometime late in December when we finally finished the jigsaw; so, having finished work, we packed up our presents and flew to ireland on christmas eve. First stop, the pub - for a pint of Guiness.

on christmas day, after opening a few presents and maybe a beer or two, we headed to the athletics club for the traditional GOAL mile.

that was a great way to start the day, then we went round visting friends and family to wish them a merry christmas. i was meeting a few people for the first time and was made to feel welcome wherever i went. i realised how much i was mising familiar food and got stuck in to just about everythng on offer.

we continued for several days, travelling, visiting, eating and drinking. bernie even drove us down to Wexford to visit ollie and terry (linda's uncle and aunt). that was really nice, especially walking in the soft irish drizzle.

yesterday we flew back to amsterdam to meet up with chris and alex and greet the new year with a little anarchy

latest from the dam

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:02:00 +0000

autumn has been fun in Amsterdam; I went to the wildlife sanctuary to meet Linda's colleagues and some of the people who look after them. it's an amazing place, on a peninsula in the middle of a big park. they have plenty of different animals; some I wasn't allowed to get too close to, like this bird of prey.

more photos...

next was Halloween, in which we stayed in and carved a pumpkin. brought back good memories :)

more photos...

exactly a year after Linda and I first met in Australia, around the 11th of the 11th, we had a visit from Debbie, Chris and Amanda - some of the original Darwin crew. it was a good crazy time, like being back in Australia but without so much space to go wild... we ended up annoying the hell out of the neighbours and having to appologise after.

debbie, amanda, linda more photos...

all is back to normal again now. Agata is all wrapped up in a tarpaulin so I can finally stop worrying about water getting into the hull. The freezing weather hasn't stopped Linda going out to take care of her animals although it now looks like she might be coming down with something. poor Linda :(
We went Haarlem at the weekend to do some Christmas shopping, and get some much needed supplies for ourselves and Agata. Haarlem is great for shopping, smaller than Amsterdam but less expensive and there are loads of cool little shops. I got a drill for grinding the many layers of coating from Agata's underside. Linda got a snowboarding jacket, essential to survive the freezing winds blowing up the canals.

linda modeling my new toy more photos...

google does it again

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:28:00 +0000

I'm becoming more of a google fan all the time. On Monday they started giving away enterprise quality web analytics for free.

What the hell does that mean?

If you've got a website, quite alot...

It means that you can find out really detailed information about traffic arriving at your website. I mean more detailed than alot of big companies have been using until now.

http://www.google.com/analytics

The service has been a bit up and down since they launched it, apparently owing to unexpected demand. This weblog has some interesting observations

Cornwall fishing blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 11:29:00 +0000

I just got this from my dad who spent a day in St Ives looking for a travel story. Enjoy!

more photos

She pitched and rolled about like a cork with waves breaking over her bows trying to drench me while I struggled into the bright yellow oilskin that had been handed to me.

“Hope I can keep down my lunch” I joked after finally clambering into the unfamiliar garment and desperately searching for a place to sit to stop myself being thrown overboard. “You can have a life jacket if you want” said the young skipper grinning at me through a mass of long blonde curly hair that blew to and fro across his face in the stiff wind. “That’s all right” I replied pretending to be brave and immediately regretting what I’d just said. “I’ve got to be back at 5.30 I shouted a little more firmly thinking what the devil was I doing on this flimsy little boat that didn’t seem to be much bigger than a child’s toy.

I was on “Brissons”, a 16’ Treve belonging to fisherman Richard Dorrington half a mile off St Ives on the north Cornish coast. With us was his father in law Tony Richards, a lean weathered man nearing his fifties and a fisherman for most of them. “Sorry it’s a bit rough today” he said apologetically, “It’s always like this when the tide is coming in” The open boat, which didn’t seem to have any other form of communication except Tony’s mobile phone slowed and the sea became slightly less turbulent. The two men started playing out their lines with hooks baited, to my surprise with red feathers. After a while Richard haled in his line with just one small mackerel on it. “That’s not going to be much good” he said in a gloomy voice. By now the boat was going round in circles and then suddenly all hell was let loose as we hit a shoal. The two men on either side of me began furiously pulling in their lines. Soon hooks and fish on the end of them came flying through the air in all directions. They landed on the floor of the boat, which rapidly filled with the beautifully marked blue and silvery bodies sliding around gasping for air. I felt momentarily sorry for them but I was too busy trying to avoid salt water getting on my camera and a hook in my eye to worry too long. Then the frenzied activity ceased. “Quite a good catch” I said expecting an affirmative reply. “Not nearly as good as we used to get” said Tony who, with Richard was now gathering up the fish into one of several trays stacked up in the boat. Even so they weren’t too disappointed as the price they would get for them would be quite high due ironically to their scarcity.

On returning to the harbour and unloading the fish I continued to learn a little more about the fishing industry in St Ives which at one time was the second biggest in the country. It was famous for its enormous herring fleet consisting of up to 200 boats stretching four deep across the harbour. Now it is down to 20 – 30 boats catching mainly mackerel, bass, bream, cod, crab and lobster. So were Tony and his son-in law a dying breed? The job is obviously hard from several points of view; the financial returns and dwindling fish stocks just two of them – the danger another. “I’ve lost two friends to the sea” said Tony who himself has been in some tight spots. On one occasion 20 years ago being caught off Trevose Head in an “easterly” force 13 gale with 40’ waves crashing over the boat and 1500 stone of dog fish in the hold. “Weren’t you frightened?” I asked, “I thought the wheelhouse was going to be blown away. We dodged the sea for twelve hours before landing at Padstow” came the reply.
So what is it then that even young men like his son-law who has only been in the business for two years want to do it. Tony, answered for both of them. “We can’t give it up, it isn’t a job, it’s a way of life”.

Nick Spurling. Oct 2005

pocket sized smartphone with a touchscreen and stylus?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:39:00 +0000

This isn't a technology blog but there's one thing that's been annoying me for ages in the world of gadgets and i thought i'd register my gripe somewhere...

For ages I've been waiting for a device that will combine a PDA with a mobile phone in a way that makes sense. My requirements are simple:
- it has to synch with my laptop
- fit in my pocket
- and have a touch screen (with a pen / stylus)

How hard is that?

Over in China you can already buy one of these:

click to read more
It's the right size and it has a touchscreen. It also has a camera and a decent amount of storage too - which is a bonus.

Over here in Europe it's a different story. Why is it that we seeing phones with 2.0 megapixel camers but no touchscreen?

click to read more

Think how many quick tasks you can get done without going near your computer's keyboard. In my view the same goes for a phone; if I want to move an appintment in my Nokia's calendar, it takes 13 key presses. Compare this with 5 strokes of the pen on my PDA - no contest. Anyone who's ever owned a Palm OS device knows what I'm talking about.

The closest thing we've got over here is this:

click to read more
But just look at it! It's so damn ugly and big and horrible and what the hell do I want with the keyboard? I'm not going to be writing war and peace while I'm on the bus!

It's strange to me that phones of the kind that I want (many of them based on Linux or Palm OS) never make it over here. Samsung has released a number of clamshell phones with touchscreens but none of them made it to market in Europe as far as i know. The i530 came close and was promoted at the Athens Olympics last year.

click to read more

They have had a few similar phones in the US for a while now:

click to read more

China seems to be where it's at though. Most of these Linux based phones are small and have touchscreens:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269.html

... but if I go into my local phone shop, I can't buy any of them. Why not? are we European consumers too uneducated to appreciate the value of a compact device with a full set of features?

summer's almost over

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:18:00 +0000

and it's been a pretty eventful summer too. I turned 30 and bought a boat to celebrate. My mum got married during the Edinburgh Festival, my cousin Yves got married too, my best mate got engaged. And it's not over yet - the sun's out and there are still tomatoes to harvest.

Oh, and that reminds me - Linda and I have officially become a boring old farts according to Chris (my brother) because we own a pic-a-nic basket with all the plates and knives and forks etc. Or maybe it's me who is the boring old fart (Linda being exempt because she's a girl and supposed to own that kind of thing)

I've been meaning to put up photos since before August but never quite got around to it, by the time I have written the rest of this post they'll be uploaded.

Here are a few good ones:

I've spent ages sorting out all my pics by country they were taken in. You can see the rest here

Thanks to everyone who has come to visit, put us up or just put up with us. See y'all soon!

agata

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:48:00 +0000

The other day I was trying to figure out what i wanted for my 30th birthday, so i asked Linda to help me. 'what about a toy to play with?' she said and already a voice in my head was saying 'don't be silly, this is my 30th, i'm grown up now, i don't need toys' but before i could say anything, another voice said 'well toys can come in plenty of different shapes and sizes'. This one is a pretty grown-up 6.5m long and she's boat shaped. say hello to Agata:

it's not actually my birthday for another week, contributions to the boat fund are very welcome - we have started work on the electrics: lights, stereo, refrigeration etc. for the interior, we're going for a kind of hippy theme with fake grass covering the floor and benches.

she's already been put to good use a few times. on the day i bought her, Owen asked his girlfriend Claire to marry him. he had secretly arranged for me to meet them in town and Agata provided a leisurely cruise back to their flat. last surprise in an evening of surprises. i don't think they noticed how terrified i was when it came to parking. a month later i'm still a bit of a novice in that area.

climbing in Wales

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 May 2005 08:04:00 +0000

Last weekend we went climbing in the Wye valley (in betweeen Wales and England). Despite being rained out on the first day, it was most excellent. Thanks to Françoise and Ian for taking us there and Chris for getting us all back safely :)

the rest of the pics are here

new pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 06:49:00 +0000

Hello from Amsterdam!

I'm liking this place very much, the job is cool, I found a flat and now Linda's moved in I feel right at home. Got about 10 mins before I have to go to work, i'm putting up some photos which you can find in the usual place...

http://molipix.brinkster.net