mark avey's blog

I’ve moved!

psionmark — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 19:38:24 +0000

I’ve moved over to an experimental Movable Type 4 blog. See you there!

Nokia E65

psionmark — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:17:08 +0000

I think I’ve found the (almost) perfect phone. I struggled to decide between the Nokia N95 and E65 for a few weeks, but when I saw the E65 streaming live TV via SlingBox (which I got free with my contract), I was sold.

What I hadn’t actually expected (which makes it an even more pleasant surprise) was the amazing connectivity of this phone. It’s actually enabled me to spend far less time “just going to check my email”, as I’m using Seven’s push email client. I also don’t need to go to my lappy to check my site stats etc as Opera Mini is perfect for just that. The Wi Fi is fantastic and I’m using TruPhone to make free calls for the time being, at least – will have to see what the cost will be after June.

I’ve got IM+ installed, so I don’t need to be at my computer for instant messaging, too, with support for all the major IM systems.

I’ve just purchased a bluetooth GPS and will report back soon with my experiences when using it with the phone.

There must be something bad about this phone, surely? Well, the only small gripe is having to manually switch some software between wireless and 3g when I’m moving around, but I can live with that. Battery life is a little shorter than I’d like too, but I’m nearly always within range of a power or USB socket, so that’s really not too much of an issue either.

Technorati Tags: nokia e65, slingbox, truphone, opera mini, im+

Ubuntu

psionmark — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:13:18 +0000

With the news of the imminent release of Vista (Wow ), I had the urge to try out another operating system. I wasn’t going to pay those prices to increase yet further the size of Big Bill’s wallet, nor could I see any real benefit of moving to Vista, so I had a look at Ubuntu. I’d dabbled with Linux distro’s in the past, but always had some reason to move back to Windows, mainly because it was, frankly, a pain to install anything. It looks like Ubuntu may be a keeper.

I’ve had a dual-boot system (Ubuntu/Windows XP) for about a month now. The only reason I go back to XP is for my Flight Simulator X sessions. For all those other applications that need Windows, I either run it under Ubuntu using Wine, or use my XP virtual machine running inside Virtual Box, a fantastic virtual machine application. For non-game applications, XP running as a virtual machine is not noticeably slower than when running natively, which is an impressive feat.

The more I use Ubuntu, the more I like it. I like that it auto-updates all my applications. I like that it’s stable and fast. Very fast. I rarely find myself watching the hard drive light flashing away as I used to under Windows. When I switch back to Windows for my Flight Sim fix and need to browse the web for something, I find myself getting very impatient waiting for the paging file access to settle down and the general “clunkiness” of it all.

Basically, using Ubuntu is a pleasing experience. It’s also fun. It’s nice not having to particularly worry about virus’ or spyware. So far, I’ve been running Ubuntu without any antivirus or spyware detection and, touch wood, haven’t been hit yet. (Guess that comment is asking for trouble!). If I did get hit, I know I could get back up and running with a complete reinstall in less than an hour. Compare that with about 5 hours for XP, once you throw in all the drivers, antivirus etc.

Take a look at 30 Days with Linux for a very level-headed assessment.

I’ll be writing more Ubuntu posts over the coming months, I suspect.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linux, 30 days with linux, virtualbox

Lunar Eclipse

psionmark — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:58:27 +0000

Had my first stab at astro photography and here is (what I consider to be) one of the better shots of the lunar eclipse of the 3rd March, 2007. Taken on a Panasonic FZ30 with 2x converter (effective focal length of 840mm):

Technorati Tags: lunar eclipse 2007

I’m back

psionmark — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:31:25 +0000

Well, it’s been a while. I’ve been really busy with FlightSimX lately, and it’s been nice to see it grow from strength to strength. We’re getting about 800 visitors a day now and around 400-500 news reader hits, which I’m pretty pleased with.

I’m also a recent adopter of MyBlogLog, a great way of finding like-minded folk and a good way to promote your web sites and blogs.

Following a major hardware fault on my Windows XP laptop a couple of weeks back, I thought I’d give Ubuntu a try. I’m extremely impressed so far. I’ve retained dual-boot capability, due to my needing WinXP for Flight Simulator X, but I’m now using Ubuntu for everything else. For those other Windows apps that I need to use, I’m running XP inside a VirtualBox virtual machine inside Ubuntu. I’m very impressed with the performance. More on this later.

Technorati Tags: flightsimx, ubuntu, virtualbox, mybloglog

In praise of SyncBack (and a good backup strategy)

psionmark — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 21:12:29 +0000

As you’ll know if you read this blog, I’m an avid photographer. Today, I was sorting through my digital albums in order to prepare a photobook as a gift. Trouble is, the files were no longer there. The thumbnails were all stored, but when I clicked one to get the full size image, I was treated to the dreaded “file not found” error message.

I searched manually through the directories and, sure enough, they weren’t there. Panic sets in. Further investigation reveals about 1,000 photos just plain gone. I tried an undelete tool, but no trace. I’ve no idea how they got deleted. Probably finger trouble.

So, time to see how well my backup strategy works. I’m paranoid, so I use Mozy as an online backup and SyncBack from 2BrightSparks to backup to my server. I took a quick look at my server and, sure enough, all the stuff missing from my laptop is safely backed up. I’m still going through the restore now, but all looks well.

Now I’m pleased about my paranoia. Watch out, it could happen to you!

Technorati tags: backup, mozy, syncback, 2brightsparks

Microsoft Live Writer

psionmark — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 14:25:57 +0000

Testing out this relatively new application from Microsoft for blogger’s called Live Writer. From what I’ve read, it’s a handy tool, especially for those of us with multiple blogs to maintain.

I’ve avoided it in the past, as I preferred the easy way you could add tags using Flock, but the latest release of Writer now has this feature and a number of others. Well worth a look. especially as it’s free

Technorati tags: live writer, blog, writer

FSX VC screenshot

psionmark — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:00:18 +0000

My first screenshot from FSX, showing the virtual cockpit of the CRJ business jet.

technorati tags:fsx, screenshot, crj

Flight Simulator X released

psionmark — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 10:05:02 +0000

At long last, FSX has been released. I’ll report back later with my initial impressions.

technorati tags:fsx, flightsimx

Photography

psionmark — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:29:07 +0000

I’ve recently started using Fotolia for my Stock photographs. Their site is very well laid out and makes it easy for you to upload your images, tag them to make it easier for prospective buyers to find, set prices etc. You view my portfolio here. I’ve tried a fair number of stock photo sites, but I feel most “comfortable” with this one.

I’ve also been experimenting with the terrific slideshow from Slide. You can see my example at my photo site.

technorati tags:fotolia, flickr, slide, slideshow, photography