Geoff Jones

After reading the excellent post “Overnight success takes a long time” by Paul Buchheit on the history of gmail it stirred my memory into why I use gmail. The answer is this prominent  button:

Before gmail came along. Spam was a real problem for me, as you can see from the last  10 MINUTES worth hitting the gmail spam filter.

and its totally relentless, a 10 minute snapshot any time day or night is the same!

So full marks to Google for letting me use gmail on all my email accounts and also to be able to access them by IMAP and POP so I can read them on my iPhone and Thunderbird.

Oh and I’m sure FriendFeed will eventually be a huge success! Follow me there as geofones.

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Tags: FriendFeed, Gmail, Google, iphone, Paul Buchheit, Spam

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Today’s walk was a 17 or so mile circular tour from Cambridge along the tow path to Baits Bite lock and then across to Horningsea. We then ventured across Quy Fen to Anglesey Abbey to see the Himalayan Siver Birch trees resplendent with their jet washed bark We returned alongside the lovely mill stream to Quy had a pint & cuppa at the Quy Mill Hotel before going under the A14 to return home via Teversham and Cherry Hinton.

I was experimenting with the new iPhone GPS application called Trail, this worked very well even with the iPhone stuffed in the breast pocket of my jacket! Once completed you can email the gpx file or send it directly to Everytrail.

Problems are battery life - my estimate is 4 hours - although apparently you can trick it into shutting the screen down by having the music playing

The second problem is that you can lose significant bits of trail by the software automatically connecting broken tracks together. See the purple trail I’ve added in the image.

Definitely worth having the capability as my Garmin Etrex batteries ran out during the walk! Trail also allows you to view your Everytrail tracks. Overall pretty neat and impressive that it works with the iPhone in my pocket. Thanks Euan for the tip

Here is the completed trail with photographs :-

Cambridge to Anglesey abbey circular walk

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Tags: iphone

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Interesting wordle of all my twitters, compiled at tweetstats,  over the past 26 months at the rate of 3.9 tweets per day

Thanks to Sally for the heads up!

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Tags: statistics, Twitter

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A Happy New Year to all my readers Good to see that you are a person of excellent taste and recognise a real quality blog!

After spending the first 12 hours of the new year in bed with Sally we decided a walk was in order. Neither of us could face the annual new year swim in the river.

So we decided to walk the opposite way and go to Baits Bite Lock via Chesterton and then return via Fen Ditton.

Here is the route with photographs. The GPS is a bit wonky in places,  as I kept it in my pocket so reception was poor under the willow trees

Baits Bite Lock walk

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In the process of trying to tidy up the GPS traces I stumbled across TrailRunner which looks quite interesting and may replace the rather expensive Ascent package that I currently use. Here is a screenshot of it with today’s walk:-

TrailRunner screenshot

Another bit of software than Euan suggested was Trails for the iPhone, it certainly pulled in my Everytrail walks pretty neatly

Tags: Chesterton, Everytrail, Fen Ditton, Global Positioning System, gps, Holiday greetings

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Cambridge Evening News

Congratulations to Boni for being recognised by the Queen and The Establishment,

Former News journalist Boni Sones, 54, of Fair Street, Cambridge,
is made an OBE for services to broadcasting and public relations.

Ms Sones, who helped set up BBC News 24, said: “I am absolutely thrilled
and tearful. There haven’t been many journalists who have been honoured by the
Queen. I am a hard-bitten journalist but this is very emotional.”

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Tags: cambridge, Establishment, Journalist, Order of the British Empire

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Today I was invited out on a walk by Caroline & Ray. We caught the train to Meldreth and then did the 18+mile walk back to Cambridge via Wimpole, Kingston, Hardwick and Coton. Interestingly this is the first time I have ever walked back to Cambridge in the past I’ve always walked away and then returned on the train. For today’s walk this had the huge advantage of having the sun behind us all day. Whereas on my last walk with Sally the sun was in our eyes for most the day, very uncomfortable at this time of the year when the sun is at such a low angle in the sky.

However, due to our speed of travel and stops at a couple of pubs we ended up walking from Coton in the dark - lovely clear skies and a very bright moon and Venus - but hazardous with the cyclists.

Here’s the walk with photographs.

Meldreth to Cambridge Walk

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and here is the elevation and speed profile:-

Elevation (blue) and speed (green) profile Meldreth to Cambridge

Tags: cambridge, Meldreth, Wimpole

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Sally has been going on and on about seeing the swan feeding at the Welney Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

So today was the chosen, freezing cold,day, we picked up Ellee, in the midst of writing her secret book, and drove out to the hides.

After getting over the shock of paying over £11 for the two of us (Ellee is a member so gets in free) we settled into the freezing cold hide to wait for the midday feed. The moment arrived and er well that was it - a few swans and ducks sailed over as they do when you get the bread out at Newnham playground. But the hordes of migratory swans on the horizon couldn’t have cared less, obviously if you have flown a few hundred miles from the arctic you aren’t going to mingle with the local Hoi polloi.

All a tad disappointing. However, Ellee gave us some delicious home made soup on our return and we had a lovely hot bath at home :-)

Visit to Welney Wildfowl and Wetland Trust

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Jim. Sally says please leave the names of the ducks etc in the comments andI will modify the photograph titles.

Tags: Swan, Wetlands

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After yesterdays gluttony we just had to have a semi decent walk today, for some reason I wanted to walk to Grantchester, in hindsight because I had seen the signs for the annual barrel rolling in Grantchester last week!.

However, I had completely forgotten about that when we set off! I was also wanting to try the new start/end route for my Scholars Way Cambridge/Oxford walk using the permissive paths from Grantchester to Barton.

This is the route we took. 13.5miles in lovely winter sunshine.

Boxing day walk & barrel rolling in Grantchester

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And here is a great shot of an ace barrel roller:-

Top notch barrel roller

Tags: Boxing Day, Recreation and Sports, Walk

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Here is the lovely smiling Sally during 2008 , from having her fortune read at Caroline’s New Years Eve party to our latest walk last weekend.



From Sally in 2008

Or you can look at all the pictures here

Quite fascinating to see all the activities we do together, walking, skiing & swimming +

What a brilliant year

Tags: Caroline, Sally

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It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of
people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage
of them.

P. G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs (1914)

A very apt quotation especially after hearing Wodehouse mentioned in a BBC radio programme yesterday, where he was being interviewed for treason!

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