Stuphi

Google used to tell you how to do this on their website. I cant find it now, so maybe they are no longer supporting this. However, at the time of writing this, it still works for syncing contacts at least.

On the phone, goto Organizer->Synchronization->New Account

Give it a name, such as “Google Sync”

Server Address	https://m.google.com/syncml
Username	Your google account username
Password	Your google account password
Connection	Your Connection Profile
Applications	Contacts

Then under App. settings, select Contacts and then for Database name use contacts

That should be it. Now you can set it to sync on a schedule. Don’t forget to back up your contacts on both your Google account and on your phone first just in case it all goes wrong.

Well it has been expected for a while. It is now official. This is the first I have seen from Google about them creating their own operating system.

Will it be any good? I don’t know, but I will give it a try, when it is available.

Yesterday I stumbled across the Heavens Above website. Once I put in my position, it indicated that last night was a good time to see the ISS. As the shuttle is currently docked, it should be especially visible.

At the indicated time, I went outside and gazed at the relevant bit of sky. First was a plane going in the wrong direction. Next I noticed what looked like a moving star. Hang on, there is another one coming behind it. This confused me, but I guessed this was either two planes, or the shuttle had already left the ISS and I could see both. The only way to know was to see if they would both disappear at the same point along the track where the ISS was due to full into the shadow of the earth. Right on que, both objects disappeared as expected.

For some reason, that was quite exciting. I have heard that you could see the ISS with the eye, but to actually do it myself was great, and seeing the shuttle at the same time was the icing on the cake.

Another pass is due tonight. If the sky is clear, I will try and grab a quick look.

I have finally bought myself a new bike. After much deliberation, a single speed Cannondale Bad Boy has won the day. One of the main points with selecting a new bike was to have low maintenance. To achieve this, hydraulic disk brakes were required. Gears have always irritated me, especially when they need adjusting. Originally, the eight speed hub geared version of the same bike had my attention, but that would still require a gear cable.

Having read a few websites that raved about the advantages of single speed, it was decided to take a chance. If it turned out that the single speed was to much to cope with on my route to work, then it would always be possible to purchase a hub gear, and convert the bike.

I have now fitted the bike with a pair of SPD peddles, and used the bike for work a few time. It is a great relief that it has been fantastic. The thought of riding up and down hills in one gear was a little daunting, but that has turned out to be unfounded. As this bike is a lot lighter than my old bike, and fitted with thinner tyres means that it makes the ride uphills possible in the gear it uses.

If you have ever thought of getting a single speed bike, then do it! Single Speed is All You Need!

Now this is great. I don’t need to often, but when I want to identify a font, it can be a real pain. A tool like this is great. You can input an image of some text, and it will identify the font used. I tried it with some random images I found on the internet, and it identified some exactly, and others it found some very close matches.

I once found a website that would also identify a font by asking a series of questions. Combined with this tool, it should be easy to put a name to most fonts.

The BBC are running an experiment where they track a standard shipping container around the world. For some reason, I find this interesting. Checking the progress this morning, it appears that one of the data points logged a time of 24:58. At first glance, it looked wrong, but took me a little while to work out why.

I know that it is not Friday. It is a Monday. All the more reason to look for something a bit lighter.

If someone told me that a kink in a patch cable was causing a network performance issue, I think I may have laughed. Apparently it is true.

I saw this on Hugo’s blog, and thought I should have a look. The list is not repeated here, as I am one of those people causing the average to be down at six. Only one book on that list was read out of choice, and that was Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. The other few were required reading at school.

There exists in me no inclination to read the others. If I am going to sit down and read, which does happen, then it will have to be something that educates me, not just entertaining, to make the effort worthwhile.

Well not me, but something that I worked on has appeared on Star Trek Enterprise. Last night, watching season 2 episode 9, “singularity”, there is a scene in the galley. In the background is the unmistakable shape of a Kenwood Major.

I few years ago, Kenwood was my employer. One of the last things I was working on before leaving them was a new control knob for the Kenwood Chef and Major range of food mixers. It was only a brief shot in the TV show, and even pausing and looking carefully, it is not all that clear, but I am certain that the control knob on the mixer used on the show is the same one I was working on.

Admittedly, it would have been much cooler to have some association with a warp core or photon torpedo. But how many of you can watch an episode of Star Trek and say, “I worked on that!”

Now where is my Klingon phrase book, I am off to a convention…