Scargill

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

I’ve been doing some research for the FSB and I thought I’d put down some information I’ve picked up – all of this is bang up to date.

Amazing as it seems, up to a third of the world has Internet access. That might not sound a lot but think of the people who will never have access – those parts of the world for example where they’ve gotten themselves into a situation where they are utterly controlled or they don’t even have electricity. If for the sake of discussion we discount those people – it’s fair to say that the majority of people who are going to get access in the near future, already have it.   Even at home in the UK there are those (primarily age-related) who simply don’t see the point and are not interested.

As for who’s using what.. PC sales seem to have levelled off whereas tablet sales are going through the roof right now – no doubt this Christmas will have an affect on that – apparently 47% of American kids want an iPad (I’d imagine a very small percentage will actually GET one). So the big drivers right now are smartphones and tablets and as we know, iPad and Google Nexus are the two big names here right now.

Right now, more broadband is consumed by mobile devices than fixed devices and the theory is that by 2015 (only a couple of year) that’ll be more like 4:1 in favour of mobile!

There are currently 6 bullion mobile phone users, 1 billion of those being users of smartphones but in current SALES, Smartphones are sailing ahead of the older feature phones which are starting to die off. As you’d imagine the whole thing is definitely age-related with the highest users of Smartphone being by younger people with more cash to spend. But of course once hooked as they get older there will be no way they’re going back… China, incidentally has 25% of smartphone sales and that puts them at around twice the size of the US market.

The Internet used to be full of free content – which made it hard to run a business from it but of course that has all changed – iTunes, Netflix (and similar), buying and selling on Ebay all play a major part today in the massive and every-increasing commercialisation of the Internet. Digital advertising has gone from just about zero in 1995 to around 20 billion pounds today.

For American companies at least – and limiting to those in the media and tech areas, around 40% of their income is now digital – i.e. online. For advertising, TV still keeps the lead (42%) – but online advertising is coming closely behind and advertising in print is starting to go very much downhill (9%). Newspaper advertising in particular has dropped through the floor (I don’t know about you but I haven’t bought a newspaper in years).

On the subject of digital photography, we all know that Kodak are stuffed – who would have thought… but today, phone cameras are now giving traditional cameras a run for their money not because they are as good but because they are far more convenient.

As a life-long amateur photographer, I gave up on film as far back as 1997 and only a couple of years ago I gave up on large bulky cameras as being just too much like hard work for hot holidays… the convenience of the phone camera and the ability to send to Facebook etc. straight from the phone was the main driver. Throughout it all however I’ve sorely missed the quality and control that comes with a DSLR. Then out of the blue the traditional cameras are fighting back – I’ve just bought the new Samsung Android camera – a full-blown Android unit with a decent lense – the first of it’s kind. I predict that a variation on this will become the norm (pending people coming out of their comfort zones) and that non-updatable, proprietary camera interfaces will hopefully soon die out. For now I’m ahead of the pack and enjoying every minute – I just wish someone would invent decent batteries!

One wonders what it would be like to to transport 10 years into the future. The changes are likely to be far more dramatic than the changes we’ve seen in the previous 10 years – but making predictions is probably a fool’s game.

After passing through the Hexham Farmers market we headed off past the church to the Hexham Eating Festival.

Well, not so much a festival as a load of stands with food and some (very nice) vintage cars…. non-the-less the park in Hexham was really alive this afternoon – thanks partly to the weather and probably just as importantly thanks to some imaginative eating options – as well as the usual ice-cream and burger vendors there was, would you believe.. a CHURROS vendor – not only that but clearly one who’s done this before! I could hardly believe my eyes (being used to these only in Spain) – though I’m prepared to bet that one of the couple running the stall was Spanish – good call!!

In case you don’t know what Churros are  – take a look here  – they may be new to the Northeast but they’re standard stuff certainly over in Andalucía – not the healthiest option but most welcome! Here they were eaten standing up as you might eat chips – in the market towns in Spain it’s common to eat them at a café with hot chocolate or coffee as dipping material. It’s making my mouth water thinking about them. That’s our Thursday treat when we’re over in Spain.

We had two of the grand-kids with us (stunning isn’t it – 58 and I have grand-children!!) and so they were as keen as we were to sample the delights on offer – in a messy, mixed-with-ice-cream sort of way. I can’t think of the last time up here in the Northeast we had a combination of a good set of food vendors AND good weather to boot! Last few times I’ve been to the Hoppings it’s chucked it down!

There was a company doing chicken and pasta done on a hotplate, another doing steaks… you name it and a great selection of ancient cars to give you something to do while stuffing yourself! That and sunshine in a park – what more could you want!

Then of course there was the obligatory blow-up slide – amazing the construction they can make out of simple blow-up plastic – the kids thought it was Christmas!

On the way out we went past a really interesting display of vintage cars, lovingly looked-after by their owners. One model – the 3-litre Capri brought back memories, it was one of my first cars and went like a rocket – even by today’s standards (I had the 3-litre purple automatic – fantastic stuff). Interesting though though – that must’ve been, what, 70s and we were using litres then – but not for fuel (which I recall was actually affordable at well under £1 a GALLON!)

There were far more cars than I have room to show here – perhaps if they repeat this next year (that would be nice) they’ll come back.

We finished the trip out with a visit to the Pound-Stretcher store – which of course the kids loved as they came away will all sorts of colouring materials – always a winner. I came away with a load of new fluorescent markers and a new set of razors for chopping up stuff.

A spot of weed-killing (it’s still not raining – the stuff might just work this time) and the sun is starting to fade, kids have been slug-hunting in the garden and I’m in here doing a write-up while the new tablet charges. After this morning’s fiasco with the burning electricity pole I’m thankful I can do this! We came back note to the sparkies finishing off re-connecting some of the neighbours who lost power during the morning’s fireworks.

Click on any of the images above to see larger versions. Here are a few more – again, click to see the full-size versions.

It’s been one hell of a weekend – week, even– I’ve been in meetings since Tuesday through this afternoon (yes, on a Sunday) with only a few hours break in the middle and I’m completely exhausted. I got home tonight and Maureen and I started to catch up with “Falling Skies” (series 2) – I say catch up – thanks to the miracle of fast-forward, I managed to start almost at the beginning and as of 20 minutes ago I’m now bang up to date – Maureen could not quite keep up the pace but I’m sure she’ll catch up this week.

Tomorrow I’ve a horrendous backlog of tasks, emails and phone calls but I plan a day or so with a friend catching up on gadgets by way of relaxation mid-week – that’ll be nice. Expecting a new solar panel and controller coming over from China in the next few days – lets hope I don’t have to wait to go abroad to test it!

Meanwhile my old pal Ollie (on the right) is taking the opportunity to spend some quality time with his dad – it’s not obvious from the photo but I’m frantically typing here and his head is bobbing up and down according like a yoyo – he’s complete oblivious to it!

If you have a half-decent PC and you have the urge to kill – I suggest checking out “Alliance of Valiant Arms” – but beware – the kids out there are heartless – I’ve managed to last out 8 minutes tops up to now.

It’s only quiet in here because I’m doing my updating in the www.bedrock.es site right now – come on over and take a look..

Constant, never-ending, ceaseless, relentless, continuous,incessant, eternal,non-stop, uninterrupted rain. I’ll bet they’re still on a hosepipe ban down south.

Another week of this and I’ll be potty by the time we go on holiday… this is what we Brits are missing.. central Spain forecast for the next week.. notice “chance of rain” at ZERO… fortunately I’m off to Blackpool tomorrow so there’s at least a chance of a little sunshine….

As part of a multi-purpose trip to Lancaster this week I had a meeting at the CURVE Theatre. Thought you might like to see some pics of the Curve itself and the surrounding area including the local market.

We stayed at a nearby hotel – the Mercure – nothing too ostentatious…

Within walking distance of the Mercure is a half-decent Italian restaurant and a Southern Indian restaurant. Picture below taken inside the Italian.

Food at the Italian was excellent and they had one of my favourites, a Calzone pizza.

For the last day of our trip we had a meeting in the Curve which is quite an impressive building in terms of size but also the design of the building itself is ultra-modern as you can see from the photos.

For much of the time the weather was nice which helped when taking pics!!

More photos.. you can click on any of these to enlarge.

It’s that time of the year, the sun is coming out, it’s time to get out and sort the garden – you’re thinking those B&Q solar lights you bought will at long last, once again be springing to life.. and…. no, I GUARANTEE if you’re reading this and you have solar lights, at least one of them will be stone, cold, dead.

The reason? It has nothing to do with the technology, it’s old-fashioned RUST. You see it doesn’t ever rain in China OR anywhere near a B&Q store and so the idea of water-proofing solar lights has never entered the heads of those involved. Simple, really.

Now, we’re not talking about rubbishy black plastic lights here but the later generation of stainless-steel and as we all know, stainless steel doesn’t rust. So you can add to the mix of no rain, my imagination…

BECAUSE IT SURE AS HELL LOOKS LIKE RUST TO ME.

What you’re looking at on the right is the scene UNDER the blue photovoltaic panel (solar panel) on a typical B&Q late-model solar garden light – I think we bought these in October or thereabouts. The light was dead. I took the battery out and charged it for a while and sure enough the light came on… but would NOT turn off in daylight – the reason is obvious…

The lights work by a tiny circuit who’s job is to take the voltage from the single battery up to something that will power a LED. It’s other job is to turn off the lights when the solar panel sees daylight (by which it charges the battery). With no solar panel connection, there is no charging –and no turn-off so the battery just flattens.

How could a new unit get into this state-  simple – eventually they ALL do because for some reason, either B&Q don’t specify or the Chinese simply don’t understand the concept of waterproofing. Either that or just as likely this is deliberate – sell them cheap, get people to replace them every year.

Were it not for this, the circuits would last a lifetime or more, the LEDS would last many years, the battery would likely be good for 5 years and the solar light would last between 2-3 years to 20 years depending on the plastic they use – some of the really cheap solar cells frost over after 2 years of even British sunshine, the glass-topped ones don’t do this.

But none of that matters if it all rusts to hell.

Worth resurrecting? Technically no, of course not…  as they only cost a couple of quid each – but if it’s a Sunny Sunday and you happen to have a soldering iron, silicon sealant and WD14 handy… why not! This particular model is now happily collecting light back in it’s natural habitat – which it is NOW capable of handling. A spot of WD40 on the board after soldering the wire back on – and a spot of silicon seal under the solar panel so the water can no longer get under there…

Worth taking the whole thing back to B&Q and making someone’s day – CERTAINLY but like me, by now you’ve probably lost the receipt and thrown the box in the bin. If only enough of us could muster up the energy to keep taking these things back and complaining – ultimately they’d get it and produce proper solar lights – no doubt about it – correctly made these things DO work and work well. Sadly, I think it’s simply down to most being made to a price. There’s a reason they have a circuit to ramp the voltage up – it’s cheaper than using 3 batteries!

Even when I was WITH Orange they could never get it right – and now that I’ve LEFT them they STILL can’t get it right.

Until recently times I’ve had an Orange mobile phone since, oh, well, last century. I’ve never had a signal in Wark but we live in home and from time to time I’ve written to Orange to try to push them along to improve the signal. Along the way their customer service has been attrocious to say the least and recently it’s been just too much. I’d had enough by mid-2011 and due to that and continued utter lack of signal at my home and no plans to get it, I finally managed to get Orange to agree that I could scrap the mobile contract and go elsewhere – this was in May 2011.

This agreement was put on my record.  I rang them up and confirmed I wanted to leave Orange – and asked what the procedure was. I was to put my phone in an envelope, send it off to them and I’d then get a final partial-month bill – and the info I needed to transfer my number elsewhere.

I sent the phone off and verified with the post office that it was delivered and signed for – that was 2 weeks from first writing the this blog in May. I heard nothing. I wrote to them – and heard nothing.  I went online to their ATTROCIOUS website which never works properly – I had SO MANY attempts…. just to get my final bill for £36.  It said there was a PDF waiting for me – but every time I went there…

I am SO glad I dumped these losers. Oh yes, I went to mobile company THREE and yes, their website works, NO they don’t have a “fair use” policy – and they give you a free premium subscription to Spotify… and their 3G works in every rural area I’ve been to up to how – Orange say they have better COVERAGE – but I think I’m safe in saying that THREE have better 3G coverage. I can play music almost anywhere I go as it streams it off the web, be that Internet radio or Spotify…  what a different world….

Check out this catalogue of errors…..

Update 5th September 2011 : I’ve just returned from holiday to find a bill from Orange (I never did hear any more from them otherwise).  No, it’s not for the outstanding £36 – but for a whopping £114.68 AND they’re threatening to "disconnect" the service – that should be good for a laugh as it has been disconnected since June (07773 819894 – discontinued) – it’s as if they have no knowledge AT ALL of the contract ending. I spoke to someone on the phone today and they have records of me ringing in… but could not progress as the guy I spoke to may be on another shift – or some such excuse  – so I’ve written off to them to point out they have the phone and the contract’s been dead since June…  Amazing.

Update 9th September 2011 : After writing off to Orange a less than pleasant letter in the post regarding the so-called £114.68 overdue bill, I received a call today to apologise for the screw-up – it says “With reference to your recent enquiry, we can confirm that your account is now settled and that no further action will be taken against you. Your credit reference records will be updated accordingly.”

Update 13th October 2011: All the time I was with Orange I had to put up with their total inability to get things right. I’d almost forgotten what it was like – until this morning.  On the 9th when I spoke to them – as you’ll see above, all was well. Well, THIS MORNING I got a bill for £69.33 – I’m sure they just think of a random number, hopefully if ANYTHING still works over there, there recorded messages from the 9th should clarify that this is WRONG – you have to wonder…

Update 14th October 2011:  2 days after Orange sent a bill for the wrong amount – they sent off a THREATING LETTER. This one says they’ve contacted me a number of times “ERM NO!”. Apparently if I’m still within my contract (which they KNOW I’m not) I’ll be liable for monthly service plan charges.  What is it about this lot that make me think of a large office of people walking in straight lines, banging their heads against walls then bouncing off in search of another wall. Dealing with Orange has been this dis-organised since I bought my first Nokia Smartphone from them last century when we lived in Newcastle…thinking about it – there was no signal there, either. Still – I’ll never have to do it again!

Update 30th October 2011: I’ve returned from a short break – this time to find a letter from Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited who sent a particularly obnoxious for £148.27 (remembering I owed Orange £36 and I had already send them a cheque on 14th October to sort this once and for all despite not having an invoice for it).  I rang Orange (amazingly this simple cancellation has now been going on for 5 months) – the operator put me on hold for his manager, his manager put me on hold for debt recovery – but their phone isn’t working today and so I have been told by the manager, a lady, that this is in NO WAY MY FAULT (you don’t say), that she’s emailed the dept recovery agency to SCRAP this and someone will ring be back tomorrow between 10.30am and 11.30am. I was just about to thank her and put the phone down when she started talking about UPGRADES… I very CAREFULLY explained this was nothing to do with upgrades but due to a cancellation because Orange never has and never will provide a signal where I live.  It is hard to believe that this company actually has computers and keeps records.

A quick look at the timeline…so far…

• May – CANCELLED CONTRACT, RETURNED PHONE.  I owed £36
• 5th September – no invoices (and no disconnection code either) – but the bill is now £114.68
• 9th September I’m promised I’ll get a bill for £30
• 13th October a bill for £69.33
• 26th October a bill arrived for £148.27 and a load of threats from Moorcroft debt recovery Ltd – and a promise from Orange that none of this is my fault. Meanwhile they seem unaware I’ve already sent a cheque for the REAL outstanding amount together with a long cover note including this blog.

Update 17th November 2011: I checked with Moorcroft and sure enough they cancelled the order against me – and they don’t do anything with credit records – one down, one to go. The latest bill from Orange turned up, no cover letter, nothing – but THIS TIME they OWE ME several pence. Well, I suppose that’s a step forward, perhaps I should get an agency to harass them for non-payment…  but importantly no confirmation that they’ve set the credit record right – and no promised letter to say we’re all done – which means I could just as easily get another bill from them at any point setting us back to square one. I guess another letter is needed to try to wrap this up, again.

Meanwhile my new THREE service continues to work a treat, they’re not immune to incompetence – but at a much lower level. I’ve now had several attempts to stop them sending me text messages every 5 minutes when I’m overseas – their Indian call centre promised me this would never happen again but a text confirmed that the operator had no authority to say that and they can’t actually stop them – well, honesty is a virtue I suppose.

Never let it be said I don’t try to shop retail….

After a tip-off that Asda have a Bluetooth keyboard the same width as the iPad, I put my Apple keypad on eBay and planned a trip to Gateshead for the weekend to get the new keypad – along with a replacement soldering iron bit for my bog-standard Antex soldering iron. In addition, the backlight went on my keyboard and so I decided it was time, after several years, to go buy a new one.

First stop Maplin in Gateshead, one of very few places left where you can buy electronic stuff locally (there is always RS Components but they close on Sundays and as for so many others, Sunday is my best day for shopping). The guy showed me a pack of generic soldering iron tips that weren’t even remotely suitable – that was it, our main electronics component shop and they had one set of soldering iron tips. Fail. While I was there I had a look at keyboards – nothing but low-end rubbish.

Next stop Asda. After a thorough look around the relevant section of the store I finally asked an assistant who clearly didn’t know what a Bluetooth keyboard was – she rang up the store manager who obviously didn’t know either. You would think they’d simply get on the computer and check stock, but no.

Last stop PC-world. You would imagine as a shop that sells games, they’d have a range of top-end keyboards – but no, just one vastly over-priced Logitech gaming keyboard and the rest were your average run of the mill.

So.. when I got home I spent 5 minutes on the web and ordered everything I need, wondering why on earth I ventured out in the first place.  I did manage to buy an excellent stand for the iPad from Poundland but that hardly justified the fiver or so in petrol for the wasted morning trip.

Peter Scargill

The image above is not doctored AT ALL – it is merely a panorama – several shots stitched together. This was taken early evening in Galera in Andalucía near the end of August this year – the weather was changing from the normal super hot summer to a brief storm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen colours like this in the sky before!

To put this in perspective here is a panorama from roughly the same spot, somewhat different angle the day before…both are taken from around 3,000ft above sea level.