In my work mailbox, I receive a daily dose of emails soliciting my participation in international conferences (usually, but not always, located in China or one of the arab nations, and usually in a field or research I'm not active in), or soliciting my involvement in a journal.  Usually, the journal emails are for what I would consider 'vanity press' publications, and either involve invitations to join editorial boards or to submit a paper.  Today's mailbox includes this wonderfully personalised email:I don't suppose it's too bad, being referred to as Dr firstname!

Where I live, firmly in the home counties, we have a pretty crap electricity supply.  It is prone to cutting out unexpectedly.  This afternoon was one such occasion, and when the power came back my router (a Netgear model, slightly old now) had bust.  No amount of power cycling or hard resetting would bring it back to life.So, it was off to PC World for a replacement.  I plumped for a Netgear DGND3300 dual band router-modem.  It was pretty trivial to set up with my ISP account.  But no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to set up fixed IP addresses for the various bits of kit I attach to the router.  A bit of googling led to the solution: it seems as though this problem is associated with the most up-to-date firmware for the router (which of course it had).  I obtained an older version, downloaded it and flashed it to the router.Problem solved.Except how come my power supply company is so rubbish they let my power cut out so destructively?  And how come Netgear can't properly test their firmware?  For the record, the latest firmware is 2.1.00.48 but the version that works is 2.1.00.42.

According to Velonews, Alejandro Valverde will be back in the peloton for 2012, riding for Movistar (Valverde confirmed for Movistar return).  Not many of the athletes who deposited blood with Fuentes have ever been properly identified, let alone punished for their nefarious plans to cheat in pro-cycling, but Valv. (Piti) is one of them - he's coming back in 2012 after a 2 year ban.  While I wouldn't want to condone Valv (Piti) in his efforts to get an edge by cheating, there is a wider issue of justice.What of the rest of the riders (and indeed athletes from other sports)?  The Operacion Puerto investigation got dropped by the Spanish authorities - why should some riders get clobbered with a ban, while others get to ride off into the sunset of their careers, clutching their ill-gotten gains?  The degree with which Fuentes appears to have been involved with the professional peloton is quite astonishing.  Many riders must be quite relieved to have made it to the twilight of their careers without being unmasked as blood doping cheats.

Last year, I wrote a couple of blog articles reviewing my year's cycling: 2010 Season Review and My Year in Cycling.  Last season, of course, saw something of a resurgence in my racing.  A combination of motivation (new time trial frameset, defying my entry to my second half century on this planet) with a revised approach to training saw me post my best short distance (10 mile, 25 mile and 50 mile) time trial results in about 6 years.  So, how did things pan out in 2011?RacingThe early months of the year saw me following the same sort of training strategy used in 2010.  Essentially (and as usual) the main place I train is on the turbo trainer in the garage.  Boring, maybe, but it's a place where I can get the effort out without dodging traffic or being restricted by short days.  As in 2010, the majority of these sessions were done quite early in the day, before heading off to work.  Everything was going swimmingly well (resting heart rate dropping, threshold power rising) when disaster struck in February.  About three weeks before my opening event in the season, the now traditional Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25', I seriously ricked my back parking the tandem in the bike shed at work.  This took me out of training for at least three weeks, and indeed was still giving me trouble at the 2-up.  Our combined lack of fitness meant we posted a pretty deplorable time, but at least we collected the prize for the fastest Composite team.  In all honesty, that was due to a lack of other teams in the category.  Still, at least that was a start to the season.Unfortunately the season continued to disappoint.  I had about three heavy colds during the season, all of which knocked me back in fitness terms, and the weather during much of the 'summer' remained atrocious.  All in all, I did not race much and when I did, I did not do well at all.Finally, the season's close heaved into view, and as usual this was marked by the Duo Normand, possibly my favourite event.  This year's edition was the 30th and the eighth time Gerry and I had ridden.  In 2010, we'd finally won a category (Corporate) and we were anxious not to do badly this year.  In the end, we had the most atrocious conditions we'd seen at the Duo (as you can see from this video), and we were rather relieved to make it to second place.My performance at the Duo seemed to me to be OK, given that a week before going to France I suffered a heavy cold, and a few days before the race I picked up another.  Frankly had this been a local event on the F1 I wouldn't have started in those conditions and with a cold but, hey, this was the Duo Normand...And with that, my season was over.  Oh and another cold...TouringThis year's Scottish tour started from Ullapool and we intended to proceed around the north coast of Scotland, and possibly make an excursion to Orkney.  As you can read elsewhere on this site, it all went pretty much awry, with a major mechanical on day 2.  We then revised out plans and decided to base ourselves in Pitlochry for a series of day rides.  The second mechanical took the form of a front tyre blowout descending Ben Lawers.  A front tyre blowout on a tandem at 25 miles an hour is a bit of a terrifying experience, though mostly in recollection as it all happens so quickly.  Fortunately I can report that my jaded 50-something year old reflexes are still functioning in top-notch style - I successfully brought the tandem to a safe stop without falling off.  Getting home on a shredded tyre was rather nerve-racking, however.As usual, a second tandem cycling excursion accompanied our trip to Normandy for the Duo, though to be honest, we have explored Normandy to our satisfaction now, and we're looking into the possibility of a week in Brittany prior to the Duo Normand in 2012.All in all 2011 was a bit disappointing.  But never fear, I'll be back in 2012, hopefully firing on all cylinders.  Certainly my winter training seems to be going well at the moment. 

Over the year and a bit that I've had my iPad, I've tried a variety of apps.  Many of these I've spotted in reviews on a variety of tech websites, and some of which I've located myself in the app store (which can actually be surprisingly difficult).  Some are imposed by Apple when iOS is updated.  Here's a brief review of some recent apps I've tried. The recent iOS5 update seemed to go quite smoothly for me at least.  As an aside, I decided to do that update because of updates to Pages, Keynote and Numbers, though the real impact of those changes seems pretty invisible to me.  One of the things that appeared on my iPad desktop was the Newsstand app, which is effectively a folder for organising magazine subscriptions.  If you don't want it, tough, you can't get rid of it.  Anyway, I was already a subscriber to New Statesman magazine - this is an app operating outside Newsstand, and really is only of interest for the weekly download of a copy of the magazine.  It behaves pretty much like a pdf reader - OK but not exciting.  The rest of the New Statesman app seems pretty ineffective.The GuardianBut when I noticed The Guardian was to be available in Newsstand, I was interested.  Especially since it's free for the first few months before it moves to £9.99 per month.  I downloaded it and I've been using it for about a week and a half.  It presents The Guardian six days a week, with rapid download of each new issue (though I've noticed that the download sometimes needs a couple of attempts). Each issue remains on my iPad for a week (this cam be 1 day to 1 month, but 1 week is the default).  The newspaper is presented with an attractive tiled front page that lets you get to the sections and stories pretty quickly.  Navigation is well thought out and intuitive.  Onward links in each story aren't as frequent as one might have expected - but when they are there, they're very useful.   Highly recommended, and it's likely I'll take up a sub in January.ProCyclingRegular reading of this blog will know I'm interested in cycling.  I've had a paper sub to ProCycling for several years, and I noticed that it was available in Newsstand.  Obviously I wasn't going to subscribe while my paper sub was still active, so I downloaded a sample issue.  This doesn't seem to be much other than a direct version of the print issue, looking very much like a pdf version with a convenient page navigation along the bottom edge.  Email addresses are activated by a tap, as are URLs  relating to some of the product reviews.  But the advantages of the iPad don't seem to be realised - where The Guardian scores and ProCycling loses is in the ability to navigate around the magazine and beyond.Media PlayersI have a couple of uPnP media devices on my network (separate from my music system, of which more later.  I've tried three uPnP media players to handle viewing images and short videos in my photo library (TwonkyMedia on my NAS box) and recorded TV programmes on my mythbuntu box.Plugplayer (£2.99) is able to see both the TwonkyMedia and Mythbuntu servers, but I think is best as a photo viewer (though every photo is preceded by a low resolution thumbnail image generated by the NAS photo gallery app).  With the Mythbuntu server, video playback seems to be a bit unresponsive.  Airplayer (£2.99) , on the other hand, works well with the photos albeit with slow loading.  Video playback from the Mythbuntu server is quite smooth.  Unfortunately, stepping through a recording is a bit hit and miss.  Subtitles are supported. The smoothest video replay comes with 8player (£2.99) - it has a lovely front page with customisable image and icon sets.  Video playback from Mythbuntu is great, it's easy to fast forward and rewind within the video, and subtitles are available.  What's not so good on my system is viewing photos on TwonkyMedia - all I see are the thumbnails.  Each of these three apps works with some aspect on my multimedia, and each quickly and accurately identifies the servers in my home network. 8player is my choice for video playback, and Airplayer for the photo gallery.I am not a particularly enthusiastic game player.  I tend to try and like smaller arcade style games to occupy an occasional 5 minutes or so, rather than spending long periods of time playing games.  But as a long-time Tintin afficionado, I just had to try the iPad Tintin game (The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn - The Game).  Unfortunately the whole thing comes across as a marketing exercise for the Spielberg film.  The film is getting mixed reviews, with some absolute stinkers from the serious Tintin fans out there in the press.  So far, I haven't had the patience to persist with the game, so that's as far as this review can go.

Over the last year or so, I've played with a home-built PVR system using the Ubuntu-based implementation of MythTV, Mythbuntu.  Mythbuntu is really just a convenient way to set up a Linux-based computer with MythTV easily installed.  Anyway, previous installments are: Easter projects – Drupal vs Joomla! and tangling with Mythbuntu, Mythbuntu, part 2 and Mythbuntu, part 3.  Most recently, I had been forced to relocate the main server box upstairs, away from the main living room.  This was due to the generally annoying and ugly computer case with its flashing lights and persistent fan and hard drive noise.  I had attempted to use an old Acer laptop as a Mythbuntu frontend connected to the TV and relaying the output to the TV.  This proved rather less than ideal.  I had difficulty getting a decent picture to the TV, though this was mostly due to my ignorance of TV and video settings compounded by issues around output formats from the laptop.  Subsequently,  I've played with a few apps on my iPad (of which more in an upcoming post) which enable the replay of uPnP recordings from the mythbuntu box via my domestic WiFi network.  This got me thinking about whether it might be easiest to pick up a relatively cheap uPnP enabled media player with which to play my recordings.I did a little browsing and came across the Patriot Box Office media player.  This little device is capable of playing just about any media format, and crucially is uPnP compatible, even without installing a hard drive.  While a hard drive would clearly be essential to use all of the player's  facilities, I didn't plan to install one.  Firstly I figured it would detract from the device's silence, and secondly, I wanted to keep this as cheap as possible (the Patriot player was at the time less than £50 from Amazon).  In keeping with my efforts to keep this shoestring cheap, I decided to try and set this up with a spare Netgear USB WiFi stick rather than splash out on the recommended Patriot 802.11n USB stick.  After all, I thought, they are probably just trying to sell stuff.The device itself is small, light and seemingly of good build quality.  I haven't opened it up, as I didn't install a hard drive.  I connected it to the power supply, to the TV and inserted the Netgear WiFi stick.  Eagerly, I switched it on...nope, the Netgear WiFi stick just would not work.  Upon browsing the Patriot support forums, it seems that only certain WiFi chipsets are supported.  So it was back to the drawing board while I ordered the recommended Patriot WiFi device.  In the meantime, I've got a long ethernet cable stretching from the router upstairs, and I can say that the device performs really well as a replacement for a mythbuntu front end, though with restricted functionality due to the absence of any added storage (of course).  I can't, at the moment at least, watch live TV from the mythbuntu system, or stream video from the internet (not so important to me).  This isn't a pressing problem at the moment, as we normally use a Humax PVR box for most of our live viewing and recording.  A more immediate issue is that having an ethernet cable trailing down the stairs is something of a trip hazard!I have a second uPnP server in the network: my QNAP NAS box runs Twonkymedia - I can therefore watch some of my home-made videos.  Which isn't quite as appealing as you might think - these are mostly of me riding my time trial bike.  And what's probably most alarming is that it includes Silent Movie, the full video of Team Grumpy's 2009 ride in the Duo Normand time trial.  All 90 minutes or so.If your are interested in finding out more about the Patriot media player, here are some links to the Patriot Memory page describing the device, and the tech specifications (pdf).

Perhaps it's something to do with the change in focus at the end of the racing season, but I'm often tinkering around with tech stuff in the autumn!  Anyway, I've just taken delivery of one of the new Kindle e-book readers from Amazon.  This model is one of several devices being launched by Amazon over the next few months, with the others apparently being a touch screen Kindle and the Kindle Fire - an Android-based tablet that promises to shake up the tablet market.  The new Kindle is usually referred to as the Kindle 4 (though Amazon seem to just refer to it as the Kindle) and differs principally from the previous model (the Kindle 3, now renamed Kindle Keyboard) by the absence of the tiny keyboard and audio playback facility.Anyway, my initial response to reading the specs of the Kindle 4 was one of disbelief: why would anyone pay for a Kindle with reduced specs - half the memory, half the battery life, no keyboard, no charger?  In fact it still has the capacity to store over a thousand books, the battery life is still 1 month, and the on-screen keyboard (operated by the five-way central button) works just fine.  I guess the expectation is that users either already have numerous USB chargers kicking around, or will just charge from a computer's USB port.The front buttons are, from left to right: Back; Keyboard; the 5-way select button; Menu; Home.  These provide the familiar functions as on previous models.  On the bottom edge there is a press-button on/off button that turns the device into standby mode (this is a slide and release switch on the Kindle 3) and a tiny USB socket.  It's to Amazon's credit that this is a standard USB socket - it's one of the smaller varieties, micro-B.  I get rather frustrated by the profusion of proprietary cables - I have so many kicking around, including two different types for the old iPaq PocketPC, the iPod/iPad cables and the Cowon one for my music player.  Page navigation is via the forward and back buttons found on the right and left edges of the device.  These are in the same location as on the Kindle 3 though subtly different in shape and action.The screen is the same excellent electronic paper display as used on the Kindle 3, with a 16-level grey scale.  This is surprisingly good at displaying images.  The Kindle 4's firmware differs from previous models in it's screen refresh mode.  In earlier models each page turn happens via a 'blackening' of the screen.  I know this bothers some people, and perhaps that's why Amazon implemented a different screen change system in the Kindle 4 in which a complete screen refresh only happens every six or so page turns.  This makes page changes quicker at the cost of gradually degraded resolution.  I downloaded and installed a firmware update that offers the ability to toggle between screen modes.  On a bit of testing, I've stuck with the new screen refresh mode, as I don't notice any issues with the display when I'm absorbed in reading.  This is the first electronic paper display I've used, and the thing really is startlingly crisp and easy to read - much better in many ways that my first generation iPad.The case is quite similar to the Kindle 3, but the bezel is a slightly lighter grey.  The back of the unit has a slightly rubbery texture.  Overall, the device feels (initially at least) to be a bit plasticky, with the pretty much matte texture of the screen.  But these are first impressions, largely by comparison to the heavier aluminium bodied iPad, and in use it's pretty clear that the Kindle is rock solid and robust.The Kindle is hooked up to an Amazon account, books are delivered via WiFi (there isn't a 3G version) - or can be copied via the USB cable.  As with previous models, pdfs can be read either by copying the file over via USB or by conversion to Kindle format by some arcane email-mediated communication that I've not tried.  The Amazon account shares ebooks between the Kindle and the Kindle apps running on my iPad and my MacBook, and synchronises where I am in each book.Some comparisons:  the Kindle is far superior as an e-book reader than the iPad, though it has to be said that in overall capability the iPad is of course a more versatile device.  This is largely because of the screen quality (for example it's excellent for reading in bight sunlight) but also the Kindle's form factor  scores pretty highly.  It's very light and easy to operate single-handed, for example when lying in bed (where I do most of my recreational book reading).There is a sense of handing over one's reading to another 'walled garden' as one does with the iOS software ecosystem.  Having said that, there are options by which files can be converted between e-book formats (the Kindle reads Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion).  Most e-book reader websites advocate software such as Calibre, which offers e-book library management and the facility to interchange formats.  I've installed this on Mac and Linux, and it seems pretty straightforward to use.The full instruction manual is on the device, with only a minimal instruction leaflet provided in the box.Full technical specs (at Amazon.co.uk)  

The latest version of the popular Ubuntu distribution of GNU/Linux was released a few days ago, version 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.  I've been playing with this release of Ubuntu  for a week or so on an old notebook (Sony VGN-TX5XN) since a beta 2 release was available, and since release day on a Dell Zino HD desktop PC (dual boot with Windows 7).  This post is really a pointer to a few tweaks and mods I've done (mostly as a reminder to myself) which I found dotted around the internet  As usual, I found that the upgrades went well, though I decided to do a clean installation on the Sony, as I'd accumulated a whole pile of cruft.Overall, I find the appearance and functionality of the (admittedly controversial) Unity desktop fabulous, and from being an unwilling user with Ubuntu 11.04 - I eventually returned to Gnome 2 - I find this iteration of Unity very usable.  Here's a snapshot of my notebook's desktop.  It's using one of the stock desktop images and the default theme (I think it's called Ambiance).[caption id="attachment_1731" align="alignnone" width="287" caption="Ubuntu 11.10 Unity desktop (click for full size image)"][/caption]You can see along the top panel a variety of indicators showing the status of some apps and other functions (Dropbox, UbuntuOne, weather etc).  The vertical panel on the left is the main panel of icons.  I've also kept Docky, as I don't like the icon stacking effect when the main panel is full, and I find it similar to OS X, which I also use.Default applications include the Thunderbird email client, Firefox web browser, and the Libre Office office suite.  The GIMP isn't included in the default installation, but is easily available via the Ubuntu Software Centre.  Personally I quickly installed Synaptic, as I prefer that (or the command line) to the Software Centre.  The breadth of the software available from the software centre is impressive, particularly since most of it is free.  The software centre itself is bright, colourful and easy to search or browse, though it seems a bit slower to install software than Synaptic and especially the command line.In both a fresh install (on the notebook) and the upgrade (on the desktop PC) I had absolutely no issues with hardware or peripherals, including the notebook's wireless card.  Setting up network printers and scanners is quick and easy.  A basic Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet just worked.Compiz Settings. If you're an inveterate tinkerer and have extensively mucked about with compiz settings (as I had), you might find the Unity desktop is a bit oddly behaving.  This was certainly the case for my desktop PC.  These commands reset things so that Unity works.

gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/compiz-1gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/compizconfig-1

Weather app. To add the weather app on the taskbar:

sudo apt-get install indicator-weather

It's pretty obvious how to set this up...I decided to use Google, and it found my location pretty easily. Apart from saving you having to peer out of the window to see what the weather's like, it supplies a four day forecast.UbuntuOne app.  This plonks a notifier about the UbuntuOne status on the taskbar:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rye/ubuntuone-extrassudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install ubuntuone-indicator

Sysmonitor. To put a system monitor on the taskbar:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor

To install config tools:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

If my old notebook had a bit more oomph, I'd be likely to be using Ubuntu as my main mobile OS.  As it is, my work and home desktop PCs both run Ubuntu, and it has crossed my mind once or twice whether to dual boot my MacBook Pro...

I updated my MacBook Pro with the latest Lion update and my iPad to iOS5.  This brings with it the much-heralded iCloud.  But I'm not exclusively a Mac user, so I'm not convinced it'll be particularly useful.  I don't have an iPhone (or any other phone for that matter).  I only have one iOS device, a first generation iPad (so sharing purchased apps seems pretty unimportant!).  I don't buy music from iTunes. I don't use the dreadful iTunes desktop app to manage my music - indeed I ditched a 2nd generation iPod Touch in favour of a Cowon music player to escape iTunes.  This seems to limit any real utility for iCloud.  Apparently I can:Synchronise my Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Notes.  Well, that happens already, doesn't it?  I have a variety of email accounts that I access wherever I am, either through mobile broadband or WiFi.  And my iPad notes turn up in my gmail account (which I can access on any computer).Bookmarks.  This refers to Safari, which I rarely (if ever) use, and then only on my single iOS device.  On all of my other computers,  I use Chrome, which synchronises my bookmarks to all my devices (except the iPad) - whether they be Linux, OS X or Windows.Photo Stream. No idea what this is for, it doesn't say, and my installed iPhoto is too primitive to take advantage of it anyway.Documents & Data.  Well, this might have been worthwhile for Pages, Keynote and Numbers, where I have the iOS and OS X versions.  However, since I cannot see a way to share files between OS X and iOS devices, and given that I have but a single iOS device, I cannot see what I can share these files with.  But for everything else, I don't think I can share with Linux, so any advantage over Dropbox is questionable. At least I can use Dropbox to transfer files to my iPad!Back to my Mac. Don't know what this is. Apparently this is to connect with a desktop Mac.

Back to My Mac lets anyone with an Apple ID connect remotely to their home or office Mac over the Internet and control the keyboard, pointer and file system.

Ho hum.  Only really useful for those fully assimilated into the Apple collective.  My office PC runs Ubuntu Linux, as does my home desktop PC and my Mythbuntu PVR.  I can (and do) get to these through other applications that use standard VNC protocols, using either my iPad or my MacBook, or my Ubuntu notebook.Find my Mac.  I think this is a way of tracking a Mac if it goes AWOL.  Could be useful, but I already have a third party app for this.I am rather underwhelmed.Oh, but isn't today Ubuntu 11.10 release day?

Well, here's another spectacularly geeky cartoon from xkcd:[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="319" caption="X11"][/caption]I've just been playing with the beta release of Ubuntu GNU/Linux 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot, if I have the spelling correct), due for release this week - tomorrow if memory serves.  I had some issues with screen resolution, so this cartoon resonates with me.  If there's one thing I hate, it's trying to sort out screen resolutions that haven't been detected.Incidentally, the latest release of Ubuntu seems to me to have sorted out many of the issues I've had with the Unity desktop, and I have new-found enthusiasm for it.  Perhaps I'll write a bit more about Ubuntu 11.10 later this week