Train of Thought

The technical among you may have noticed I use the ‘Wordpress‘ package to host this blog. As I noted a long time ago, this was largely because the folk behind it seemed to be respectful of the fact that URLs are part of the human interface to the web.

I’ve been a happy user of Wordpress for a few years now, and I enjoy the new features they’ve added in that time.

However their basic position is that the only way to get security patches is to stay on their latest release. This is problematic. I’ve invested considerable effort in integrating this blog into the rest of mcaleely.com, by creating a custom theme. Sadly, the Wordpress team don’t appear to claim to maintain the APIs that themes talk to in a stable fashion. Every time I upgrade, I’m expected to review (At least – at worst, I must re-do) the technical work of creating a theme. This is non trivial effort, but apparently this time of mine is not important enough to the Wordpress team. If it were, I think they’d nominate stable API releases, and provide security patches for them. Otherwise I find the claim that I can upgrade with a ‘known amount of work‘ niave and mildly insulting.

I’m finding the fact that I’m required to do this work for a time critical security patch on a Sunday evening just plain annoying.

Unless this attitude changes, I’ll have to shop for a new blog provider. Any suggestions?

Thank you Richard! On Saturday, I was told to be awake early, and then asked to open one of my birthday cards a couple of days before time. Inside were TGV tickets (first class!) to Besançon, where the Tour de France was due to finish Stage 14.

Wow.

So I spent my day with Richard day tripping into the French countryside, and getting to see the Tour de France ‘for real’ in it’s natural habitat. I’ve been spending this week in Paris, and watching the tour on TV live every day has been quite a treat. Seeing it for real was, however, amazing. It may fly by in a few minutes, but the town spent the day building up to it, and it was great to be a part of that. Seeing people arrive on the same train as us, picking up details of a local tour history exhibit at the tourist office, and then spotting fellow fans throughout the day created quite an atmosphere.

Richard had chosen the stage well – Besançon is a medieval fort town, with incredible fortifications. We did not have long, but exploring the citadel in the afternoon was very rewarding – there were great views from its battlements. I would certainly like to return and spend more time exploring.

My photos are here. A birthday I will remember for a long time.

A couple of months ago I got back on my bike, with the aim of completing a BHF charity ride in Norwich. It rapidly became clear that my level of (un)fitness meant I should aim to complete the Norwich 50, while my cycling partners Mikey and Liam trained for the Norwich 100 (yes miles!).

Yesterday was the big day, and we all succeeded in our aims and completed the ride. Well done to Liam and Mikey. A big thank you to everyone who supported us, and to my sponsors who were so generous.

It is not too late to make a donation to the BHF – if you want to congratulate me, and donate to them, you can do so via my JustGiving page.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, although it was not without its low moments. The weather wasn’t stunning, but the low for me was spending a couple of hours with a flat tyre, contemplating having to skip some of the ride to get a repair done, having destroyed two inner tubes en route already. I think my Dad also had a more interesting day than he planned, because he helped direct traffic at the scene of an accident (a rider broke some bones on a sharp, wet, downhill bend), and in a stroke of luck, was able to give me and my flat tyre a lift to the nearest mechanic stop.

Fortunately the next stop was on the ‘100 route, so by the time I fixed the tyre and doubled back onto the 50, I still did the full distance I planned! Waiting for an opportunity to buy a new inner tube for two hours wasn’t great, but it reflected the good organisation of the ride overall – the wait was simply due to the volume of punctures on the day (much higher than normal, probably because of the weather), and the fact that the mechanics were mobile – helping people out en route.

In the end, the generosity of a fellow cyclist cut short my wait by giving me a spare puncture repair kit. I hadn’t packed one myself (I just carry an inner tube, pump and tyre levers), because I rarely succeed to get them to work. Sure enough, I needed two attempts to get a patch to take, and then I rode gingerly to the next fixed mechanic point and replaced the tube there. I left behind some of my tyre levers with other cyclists repairing flats who had broken the set they were carrying!

A highlight of the day was meeting an old friend – John Swindells – and riding part of the route with him. He put my fitness in perspective by setting a fast pace (we overtook lots of other cyclists), while towing three of his children. The exclamations from people we overtook, as they realised the load John was towing (particularly uphill), were entertaining.

As I have mentioned before, while I was training my Nanna, Jasmin Holdgate, passed away after a short illness. Given the timing, I felt that using this ride to also raise money for Marie Curie and the work of their nurses was appropriate. As of this writing I have raised £221.21 for the BHF, so I will be making a matching donation to Marie Curie in memory of my Nanna in the next few days.

I would like to specifically thank Richard for providing much needed encouragement, and my Dad and Brett for their practical help on the day. Liam and Mikey were fun to ride with, and I have to credit Liam with getting me started on the whole thing. Thank you both. Of course, I am pleased by the generosity of my sponsors, and they provided a much needed encouragement to keep me training. Thank you all.

Now, when is next year’s ride?

In just under 2 weeks, I’m hoping to ride 50 miles around Norwich. I’d like to ask you to sponsor me in this effort. 50 miles will be the longest ride I’ve completed in many years, and provides an opportunity to raise some money for good causes.

Richard’s been egging me on, and the story started earlier this year when Liam persuaded me to put this in as a goal to encourage me to cycle more this year. There are two rides on the day, and three of us heading up to Norwich. Liam and another friend, Mikey, will be aiming to complete the 100 mile version, having much more cycling under their belts than me.

I’ve been training a while, and completed a good milestone last weekend when the three of us did a 70K ride that undulated its way over the South Downs in Kent.

The Norwich ride is organised to provide support for The British Heart Foundation, and I’ve ridden on their behalf before. I’m asking you to support them and me by sponsoring me over at justgiving.com.

On a personal note, as many of you know, my Grandmother passed away recently. I will therefore be taking this opportunity to also support the Marie Curie nurses in their work. Whatever the total sponsorship I raise for The British Heart Foundation, I will personally match and donate to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

I’m looking forward to the ride, so thank you in advance for your support, and please be be generous!

PS – subscribe to my twitter feed for progress updates!

I’m making this post to document the informal conversations I’m trying to have as often as possible with people I know.

A lot of my former colleagues and friends are going through a period of turmoil at Symbian and other places. Whilst the Nokia takeover and the birth of the Symbian Foundation are creating lots of opportunities, the change means I’m aware lots of people are looking around at their options.

If you’re thinking of doing something new, I can recommend the self funded sabbatical. I enjoyed mine last year, and the progress Transmission Begins has made is a direct result of that time.

Transmission Begins is not in a position (yet) to hire employees and offer salaries. That will come later, if mine and Morgan’s plans come to fruition. There are lots of other options though. If you’re based in London, are a skilled software engineer, and thinking that some sabbatical time spent on a ‘busman’s holiday’ is a good idea, I’d love to have a chat:

john@mcaleely.com

I’m not the worlds biggest fan of Valentines day, despite being a bit of a romantic at heart. meish.org says it so well!

(and yes, I have re-used last year’s post)

I recently discovered that my ISP provides handy statistics about the internet traffic to my house. Here, as a historical curiosity, are the figures for 2008:

As background, we don’t make use of P2P for content that the original owners aren’t happy distributing, so I imagine there are heavier users of the net out there. We do use Miro though, so I imagine a fair amount of that traffic is video. The peak in October certainly is (I watched Democracy Now during the US election), and I imagine that was what Jan and Feb were too.

The eagle eyed, or keen, reader might have noticed that most pages on this site have a date on them, often at the bottom of the page. This is automatically generated, and reflects the last time the page changed in any way.

One date, however, I update by hand. On the site’s about page, you will find a copyright notice, together with a year range. This I update manually, once a year.

I’ve considered automating it a few times (it would be trivial) but I like it – as a signal that I’m still maintaining this site, and it is not quietly bitrotting away.

It looks like I’ve done this 14 times now.

Happy New Year!

Many of you will know I have a Mac Mini connected to my TV, to provide internet TV (via Miro) and a PVR for broadcast TV (via Elgato’s eyeTV). Several people I know have similar set ups, and there seem to be three schools of thought for controlling it from the sofa:

• Use the apple remote.
• Use a bluetooth Apple keyboard and mouse.
• Use some non-apple keyboard/trackpad combo.

Of the three, I like the last – there are too many times when a keyboard is needed on OSX to make the first work for me, and trying to find a flat surface for the mouse means the second drives me mad.

So when I set my mini up, I tried to source a suitable keyboard. Here in the UK that seems to be a hit-and-miss affair, with stockists varying each time I looked. When I noticed a wireless USB keyboard intended for a PS3, I snapped it up. It’s by Logitech, and called the Y-RAN77 (snappy!). They don’t seem to make it any more, but amazon lists something similar.

The only remaining problem is that some of the keycaps weren’t resulting in the right character when pressed. Some people prefer that – relying on their typing ‘muscle memory’ to get the right character. I use so many different keyboards, I don’t really have a subconscious recollection of them all, so I used this tool to remap the defaults the mac used to the correct items.

If you also need such a thing (unlikely), the file is here. Just copy it to /Library/Keyboard Layouts, and then pick ‘Logitech Y-RAN77′ from the list of ‘Input Menu’ options in the international prefs pane.

Seasons greetings to everyone reading!