A coffee per day

I was feeling guilty about ordering our new Nespresso Citiz machine but now I realise it is actually an essential Healthy living enabler.

A coffee per day ...

Les Rochers de Naye 2009

It's been another interesting Sunday as we successfully scaled the 1900 metre heights of Les Rochers de Naye.


As you can see we were prepared


As we arrive Montreux for the start we came upon a Fresh Bread vending machine ... ah only in Switzerland.


The 6.30 am start was necessary for the 09:30 start. As per last year we started from the back meaning that the river stretch at 1Km was spent walking, then running then walking as inexperienced runners who did not seem to be aware that we'd be running uphill for 2 hours came to a halt and caused a big jam. Perhaps next year we will start from the front .. we might not be fast but we dont start walking 10 minutes into a 2 hour run!


The course was the same as last year which really helped us. We were careful not to overdo it at the start and drink reguarly from all the water stations. They had water, isotonic and oranges, but not chocolate like our

Despite all of this Marcus and Agata walked the last 1Km. It is still to steep for us to run!

Agata arrives

The finish

Agata proudly displays her finishers shirt

Marcus asks: Can we use of damn helicopter or are you going to force me to take the train?

I guess we chose the train

And the Stats:
We finished the 18Km run in about 2.5 hours
We climbed from 400 to 1900 metres
Marcus lost 2.5Kg even after rehydration
Sore bits after run - none!

Simply Greater

Simply Greater

Being Professional

I've been assured by the bigwigs in presentations at work that the project I am working on is simply the most critical IT upgrade of the next 18 months. Michel and I participate the Build phase of a new AIX based SAP ECC6 (ERP Central Component 6) level template.

With tens (and I mean tens) of Million CHF (Swiss Franc) being spent I do rather muse over the irony of the fact that we are being pressurised to deliver deliver deliver. Apparently there is no budget for our work extension.

And of course being totally professional consultants we'll do such a satisfying job that we can then be safely discarded like a pretty girl after a one night stand. Ho hum.

mac Meany upgrdes

Having downgraded our Lounge TV screen from a 2560x1600 pixel panel to a mere 1920x1080 HD panel an extra thought came to mind.

You will be aware that a 2560x1920 panel requires Dual DVI output something that is still quite rare on entry level graphics cards.

But with a mere Full HD screen I could now consider replacing our faithful Shuttle Media PC and Webserver with a Mac Mini.

What compromises would I have to make (compared to current Shuttle) ?

Max Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz (cf current Intel Quad Core)
Max Memory - 4GB (cf current 8GB)
Max Disk - 320GB (cf current 2TB)

Things were thus not looking good but what really scuppered the idea was the infuriating lack of expandability that has been carefully Engineered into each an every mac Mini.

Here is the Apple Mac Mini DIY Memory Expansion Guide

Here is the Apple Mac Mini DIY Hard Disk Upgrade Guide

(And don't get me started on Apple's ability to provide unusual video output connectors)

I think the first 10 seconds of the following video sums up an Engineers dismay of this cosmetically beautiful but totally unserviceable design

What were they thinking?

Compuserve RIP

Farewell to my old friend Compuserve.

My userid 100111,3200 is now forever closed.
Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

To help shed a tear .. watch this video

Saturday night LIVE (240Volts)

Well I can confirm that the low point of the weekend was when I grabbed what should have been an inert cable that I was trying to solder and experienced the thrill of 240V coursing through my body. And the high point was living to tell the tale ....

We have had some trouble with the extraction fans in our Lausanne apartment so with 2 Engineers in residence (i.e. Agata and Marcus) we felt over qualified to put things right

The flat installers had clearly rushed the installation of our LIMODOR C-NR fan, breaking the cover and badly supporting it into the ceiling so it is almost falling out. As such so we did not really want to touch the unit. But this and the bathroom over-run timeouts are not correct, so we were determined to continue:

We set about pulling out the unit and disassembling the electronics to adjust the switches ... (click picture for detail)


We soon found out that whatever set of switches we chose the unit did not switch on or switch off as expected.

This was the start of several hours of retrospective Engineering and humour:

• We played with both sets of switches but it took us over 30 minutes to ask the question: The ON timeout, what the hell is it? Is this a time before the fan switches on? But that is ridiculous, why wouldn't you always want it to switch on immediately?
  
  
• We set the fan to full power on and full power off. Then we realised, in such a configuration, when you make press the switch repeatedly you don't necessarily know if you are switching it on or off. Now we realise why the half on, full option is there. Doh!
  
  
• Since the unit ceiling mounting was dodgy we had to rig up a mains supply on the study table, because repeatedly taking the unit out, adjusting the PCB was time consuming and making the remaining mounts even more fragile. So we setup to rig up a 240V supply, meaning wire stripping a mains lead, and then trying to solder the ends. This is probably not the best activity to do late at night, with poor lighting, leading to an accidental plugging in of the lead and not the soldering Iron, and Marcus's subsequent electrocution! Also with Marcus's still partially paralysed fingers this activity might best be performed when I was more awake.
  

• We thought: Okay there is an on and off switch in the wall. So how come the unit keeps going for the overrun time after you switch it off! [Answer the unit is fed by constant live, switched live and neutral. The presumed earth wire is actually constant live]
  

• By a process of difference with the identical type unit in the Bathroom we found that the electronics C-NR of the shower unit fan are defective. Having another identical unit allowed us to swap parts and isolate the faulty PCB.

• We remembered to mark the position of the initial switches and the bits from each room so we could put it all back as found. So we could go back to as was and not make things worse!
  

So what were the learning points from this experience?

• My childhood memories when my father had insisted I undergo electrocution Voltage training with his variable AC voltage regulator up to about 260V was well learnt. (I'm not kidding!). I already knew what a few hundred Volts feels like as it enters ones body.
  
  
• We now know what the Overrun time means, how it can stay ON with the wall switch OFF, and the purpose of half and full speed modes.
  
  
  Even the smallest designs have their purpose and are quite fascinating.
  

So to summarise, who needs that verre blanc on a Saturday night when instead you can spent it up a ladder, fiddling with dip switches, and holding 240V cables.

Global Warming

The real reason people from all nations are striving to eliminate global warming

Looking for that next job

If you study the fine Javascript down on the right of this blog you will notice that in less than 30 days I am agast that my current contract comes to a conclusion.

Clearly I deserve a great job, but by setting my sights modestly (I'm grateful for any suitable IT job in these tough times me lud) well I think I will not be disappointed.

Although my initial web research has uncovered some disturbing copy:


(Click on the images to enlarge)

Not a job for light weights !

Navigon 7310 GPS review

So just recently we upgraded our GPS. The previous Garmin V was so old that it did not even have a colour display, or even a voice for turn by turn instructions.

After quite some research we decided on the mid priced Navigon 7310


What was in the box (and what was not)

• No mains charger only one for the car cigarette lighter.
• A fiddly screen protector that was not so easy to attach. If it is recommended then why not have it preinstalled?
  
• No CD PDF manual, in fact no detailed manual at all. Actually I wanted one.
  
• Freshmaps discount offer (I took this for 19 EUR)
• A screen mount to attach the unit to the screen to use whilst driving
  
  

First Impressions
The unit (and hence screen) is a lot smaller than I expected. This serves me right for not reading the specs correctly. It is about half the size of my friends old Navigon. It's more of a shock than a disadvantage.

Speed Cameras: It's illegal for a GPS to detail speed (safety) cameras in Switzerland and regrettably it does not allow you to accidentally on propose break this rule and switch on the option for Switzerland. But search for a UK address and the option becomes available.

A Real World Test .. Some Basic Features

• Type in address and look at current area. Scrolling map is painful (compared with Google maps on my iPhone)
  
• Navigate to an address and select Car or Bicycle or Walking route
• Whilst on the road receive TMC traffic jam informaion (via its inbult radio receiver) and then press a button to seek an alternative route to avoid the jam
• Save a waypoint you navigate to or select as a named waypoint
• As you approach any turning it visually shows you a picture of the exit lanes. Especially useful for motorway junctions
• It speaks turn by turn instructions (obviously) through the built in speaker although there is a choice of only 2 female voices

Web Links
Navigon 7310 official link
The PDF users manual for Navigon 7310

Web Update
For about 20 Euro you can subscribe to a Freshmaps update service:

• First you register on the Navigon Website
• Then you use the code on the intro manual to reduce the 100 euro normal price down to 20
• After registering you get access to the Navigon 7310 PDF users manual
• You install some Navigon controlling software
  
• When you connect your Navigon it checks and allows you to upgrade your Navigon firmware including maps and OS updates

Most Annoying Flaws so Far

• When selecting a car route the time to destination or time at destination is completely wrong. Example: I have 5Km to go and it says it is going to take me about 2 hours, even though I'm driving at about 50Km/hour. When you switch to motorbike or truck route, it is correct but then it chooses the wrong kind of route. I hope a software update will fix this soon.
  

Things you will never use

There are some idiot features that I am glad can be turned off.

• Voice commands! Are you kidding me? Use only if desperate. A much better idea is to give the unit to your passenger and ask them to control this GPS. This has a higher chance of success, involves your passanger in the navigation process and gives them something to do.
  

• The "don't panic there is a bend in the road" coming up. Presumably for our North America cousins or anybody driving an elderly vehicle from that continent (whose in-ability to take bends at speed is legendary).
  

Move those muscles

It has been a tremendously energetic weekend of muscle pumping ending in a slightly inevitable fondue, wine and snooze.

We started on Saturday morning trundling over to visit Andrew and Jackie on what is a rather sad occasion. Something that is rare in Switzerland: they are actually moving away to follow their careers in Zurich

We had a fantastic time on Saturday:

• Agata had the chance to go into bubble wrap overload
• Marcus had the chance to use his electric screwdriver
• We all had chance for a good chat, catch up and talk about the future
• We had an entertaining visit to the Lausanne storage facility Zebrabox, boy are they posh
  

The mostly empty van before packing

A lounge that needs to be disassembled

Agata: the bubblewrap packing queen

The essential packers tool: Nespresso coffee (no instant coffee for us posh movers)

Jackie and Andrew just before their departure.

With our Saturday exercise completed we headed back to Lausanne for an early night. This was not just an entertaining Saturday but a vital exercise warmup for the main event of the weekend

Course des 2 Lacs Bouveret

Bouveret is a small port village on Lac Leman east of Montreux and they have a good Overview Brochure and a Website. This year Bouveret has teamed up with 2 other villages Vionnaz and Rochers de Naye to make a 3 run trophy. Due to laziness (and the rainy weather) we missed Vionnaz so we make a good start with Bouveret.

This is the profile of the run, but with this profile I expect to spend quite some time walking! As such I am taking my carbon fibre waling poles with me.

There were 2 possible runs from Bouveret to Lake Tanay, the long 21Km shown above and the shorter 11Km one. Clearly we chose the longer one!

Agata after arrival at Lake Tanay

Marcus having arrived at Lake Tanay

Lake Tanay

Race report: We finished within a few minutes of each other. Marcus had severe navigation problems, effectively getting lost 3 times. The first time there was a fork in the road, one up one down and no indications. I had to wait around for other runners to arrive who knew the way. The other 2 mis directions were my fault and the worst was 5Km from the end where I missed a (small signed!) turn and continued down an asphalt road. About 5 steep minutes down later I saw runners on the other side of a deep ravine. So I had to run all the way back. Frustrating I can say.


Rather than wait 2 hours for a bus to take us back down to Bouveret we thought a much braver idea would be to walk back down. In retrospect until we have become better trained and fitter the bus might have been more sensible.


We study the map trying to figure how to get home. Notice that Bouveret is nowhere on the map. We had 1 hour to find a Bouveret sign and if not we would double back to Lake Tanay to get the bus.

Thankfully we found a sign after about 45 minutes so with stiff legs and only 500ml of water we optimistically continued downwards.

Half way down, a beautiful princess is spotted.

We have just run up this mountain! And then walked back down.




Some not very interesting statistics...

Time to run up the 21Km course: just over 3 hours
Time to walk down (ouch) the 11Km course: 2 hours 50 minutes
Marcus Weightloss after the run (even after rehydration) 3Kg
Bit of body that are aching: Absolutely everything. Not sure about exercise on Monday!

Tabbed PuTTY

If you are not aware of UNIX or the excellent telnet (or SSH) client called PuTTY then you can stop reading now. Else ... I declare that

Today I started using Tabbed PuTTY. Life will be forever changed.

(And don't forget that PuTTY can also be used for serial (RS232) terminal emulation, so there really is no excuse to use a dedicated Serial emulator like HyperTerm, CrossTalk etc)

Car Buff or Car Bluff

With the credit crunch biting and environmental pressures seeming all too real it's fairly sensible not to drive a large carbon polluting car long distances or at all in fact.

So with a true vicarious spirit installed I can only say I am shocked and saddened that I've completely failed to notice that this seasons mainstream motoring TV series are already in full swing.

As of today (June 25th)



Top Gear Australia: Series 2, Episode 7



Top Gear UK: Series 13, Episode 1 (The stig is revealed)



5th Gear UK: Series 16, Episode 3


I promise to study the relevant websites more closely in the future

Destination Munich

So we are off to Munich to see our friends Waldek and Aneta. It has been a shocking 3 years since we last visited, and though we are purposefully cutting back our motoring journeys (to save carbon) this one is long overdue.

We ready the essentials: Peanut butter, GPS and iPhone.


First up Agata is driving equipped with a healthy smile



Our new budget Navigon 7310 GPS doing a great job. Although with no manual except the online one on the device the route programming is a bit hit and miss.


We are carrying some Appenzeller cheese contraband so how appropriate that le fromage passes his home.



And then the rain started



3 hours later it is still raining


Arrival Munich and we are so happy



Agata the bookworm is already reading, whilst our host proudly shows us some Xbox skills


Waldek is about to serenade us


Apparently this is not a Dolce and Gabbana T shirt


Marcus and the flower


Entrance to the BMW land munich : homage to all things BMW




BMW foyer - impressive


3 around the M3


Some kind of fast car



2398cc BMW P86/8, weight 95Kg, revs to 19000 rpm, developing 720 BHP



BMW architecture



BMW Museum


BMW spiral


We stumble upon the 24 hour Munich Olympic Park cycle race


For 10 minutes this man proved that phone ghetto blasters are not just for teenagers





Arrival at Neuschwanstein, the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle


View to the Bridge


Macus and Agata posing


Hello Daisies


And then there were 3 in front of the Castle




Waldek



Castle View



The Ferrari four from Luxemborg


Leaving Neuschwanstein for Lausanne the parking ticket machine sums up our weekend

MPs' expenses - oh joy

As usual the BBC comes to our rescue. Search for your local Member of Parliaments expense claims. Download the PDF's. Simply endless hours of fun / shame.

CLICK on this link now

The iPod Survivor

I have to give credit to Apple and to the designers of my 2nd generation Apple iPod. It has just un-intentionally survived the washing machine test!

Ironically this was just after the (almost) daily swimming session which is always performed with music thanks to the Apple iPod and Waterproof case

So to complete the picture. Like a complete muppet I came home, removed trousers and stuffed them into the washing machine, iPod and all. About an hour later a 100% waterlogged iPod was discovered.

With the memory of the Watery Grave of my first beloved Apple Nano 2nd-gen in mind I did not try to switch it on. Instead, stood the Nano upright, screen at bottom and apple connector slot at top. Then in this position put it near to the hot air exit vent of my Laptop. 12 hours later it looked dry and I was beyond thrilled when upon connecting to my laptop and iTunes it sprang into life.

The display works but looks a bit "marbelled", quite cool looking actually, assuming this does not mean it's about to die on me.

SO all's well that ends well and the iPod nano gen2 survives to play another day.

More time spent in the Study

If you browse on over to the Cromix and other Vintage diskette catalog you will see that I am making goood progress in the latest project which is converting from the old vintage 8" (8 inch) diskette format down to the more modern 3.5" diskettes.

This is being done for both space and longevity reasons. In space terms whilsts the diskettes are small the disk drives are much much smaller. To put it in perspective ... my 3 disk 8" cabinet weighs in at about 80Kg, and 3, 3.5 inch drives are about 1Kg.

I've already documented the process of transforming a Samsung SFD-321 diskette drive into 8 inch emulation mode. Now let us look at the Cromemco Cromix commands that I am actually using to convert over the diskettes:

A short article on howto copy from 8" to 3.5" diskettes

Assumptions: You have a Cromemco cromix computer with a DPU or XPU (dual processor card) and a Cromix operating system that has been generated to include a Uniform floppy driver

Caveat: If you run Cromix on a 68020 system without a Z80 slave processor then I find any attempt to read CPM or CDOS diskettes using the cdosopy -l command will hang the whole system!

In all cases below note my configuration:

A: drive   5.25" 360K
B: drive   3.5"  emulation of an 8" drive 
C: drive   8" physical drive

• System is running cromix 168 on an XPU with 768K memory.

• Operating System has Uniform Floppy driver installed
  

Why choose uniform?

The Uniform diskette format has all tracks formatted at double density, 512 bytes per sector (normally). In particular Side 0 track 0 is not in Single Density. This a diskette created in that format is more likely able to be read by a modern imaging program

The Best case: Uniform 8" to Uniform 3.5" diskette copy

• Place both the source 8" and unformatted target 3.5" into disk drives

• format and verify the target

initflop -v -u 512 ufdb
makfs -b 2 ufdb             #
readall ufdb                # verify integrity

• Double check the format of the source

free ufdc                   # should print out free space or rude message if wrong diskette format e.g. cromix format

• make the copy with rcopy

rcopy -l 10 /dev/ufdc /dev/ufdb        # this is only going to take a few minutes.  So much more efficient that cptree

• Paranoia check 1

check ufdb                            # run icheck and dcheck

• Paranoia check 2

d /
mount -r /dev/ufdb /db
find /db -print
unmount ufdb

Cromix source to Uniform Target

* Place both the source 8" and unformatted target 3.5" into disk drives

• format and verify the target

initflop -v -u 512 ufdb
makfs -b 2 ufdb             #
readall ufdb                # verify integrity

• Double check the format of the source

free fdc                   # should print out free space or rude message if wrong diskette format e.g. cromix format

• Make sure cptree command uses some memory

config /bin/cptree.bin 128K  # do this once only

• make the copy with cptree

mount -r fdc -dc
mount ufdb /db
mode -pa
cptree -fv /dc /db                    # may take some time
unmount ufdc
unmount ufdb                          # flush buffers and unmount target

• Paranoia check 1

check ufdb                            # run icheck and dcheck

• Paranoia check 2

d /
mount -r /dev/ufdb /db
find /db -print
unmount ufdb

CPM or CDOS source to Uniform Target

Worst case because it is slow, some of the source filenames will be illegal and therefore cant be copied with this method and lastly since on my faster Cromemco 68020 system cdoscopy hangs so cannot be used.

• Place both the source 8" and unformatted target 3.5" into disk drives

• format and verify the target

initflop -v -u 512 ufdb
makfs -b 2 ufdb             #
readall ufdb                # verify integrity

• Double check the format of the source

free fdc                   # should print out free space or rude message if wrong diskette format e.g. cromix format

• make the copy with cdoscopy

mount ufdb /db
mode -pa
d /db
cdoscopy -bv fdc "*.*"                # perform the copy
unmount ufdb                          # flush buffers and unmount target

• Paranoia check 1

check ufdb                            # run icheck and dcheck

• Paranoia check 2

d /
mount -r /dev/ufdb /db
find /db -print
unmount ufdb