giffgaff is a sim only mobile phone company that runs on the O2 network in the UK. I heard about it by reading a blog post by Laura Cowen. After that I seemed to see adverts for it all over the web. Well I have not switched from my main contract yet, but I have just activated my sim with a £10 goody bag. If it works as advertised, I should be able to half my monthly bill.
Anyhow, anybody else wanting to switch to a Pay as you Go SIM only company, then by al means, click here.
Here is a useful resource. I have just bought a new eReader from Sony, and wanted to stuff to read. There is probably more here than I will ever be able to read. Some of it is even stuff I want to read!
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.
Bad Boy Singlespeed
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! 🙂
What The Font?!
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.