Thursday, December 14, 2006

Door to door routes in Canada.

Further update....


I have just been trying to reproduce the problem I had so I could provide as much information as possible. I was unable to reproduce the problem unless I left off the postcode.
Whoops!

I am pretty sure I used the postcode as I remember checking to see if it was case sensitive. The other possibility is that the address and postcode I originally put in was wrong. I used a different source for the addresses this time.
I shall be checking my data sources.

In the mean time - the multimap wbe page for "door to
door directions"
in Canada seems to work very well. As far as I can tell from memory the journey times it comes up with are about right as well.

A useful site.



originial post and updates below


One of the many things that I subscribe to, and rarely get around to
reading, is an email newsletter from the Canadian tourist board called
Spirit of Canada
One interesting bit in this months is a link to multimap for "door to
door directions"
in Canada. I have not tried it yet but at some point
I will try it with the address of my parents-in-law. They live on a
road that has a number rather than a name and I am not sure I recall
how the house is identified. Should be interesting to see how it copes
with destinations like that.



Update: I tried a route from my parents-in-law to my sister-in-law.

I got this error message
"We could not find any matching names or places for your start address"
Obviously it cannot quite cope with "any address in Canada" as it states on the original link.


Update: I have received an email from the people at multimap askign for details so they can work out why things don't work. Seeing as how this is not a mainstream blog (infrequent posts et cetera) it strikes me that they are very interested in customer service to be keeping an eye out for comments about their service. I shall have to dig out the addresses again and reply to their email.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Considerations for projectors

I have been aksed to look into data projectors for church.
Amongst my initial research I have found this astralian page with a useful run down on contrast ratio and what is more useful in situations with higher ambient light (such as we are likely to experience).

Still looking....

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Calculating subenets and IP ranges

I was asked recently if I had or knew of some stuff to make IP
subnetting relatively understandable.
I have done a quick trawl and a brief mental rejection process and
selected these links as starting points.

http://www.pkostov.com/ip_workshop2.html

Cisco exams
http://www.2000trainers.com/section.aspx?sectionID=5&tab=exams

The clue is in the URL
http://www.learntosubnet.com/

I found this one confusing
http://www.petri.co.il/subnetting_table.htm

I disagree with the comments about hexadecimal but otherwise this one looks helpful
http://www.punkwalrus.com/howto/subnetting.html

A graphical approach
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-6089187.html

An encouragement towards DIY table creation
http://www.faqshop.com/misc/default.htm?http://www.faqshop.com/misc/miscarts/sn%20made%20easy.htm

VLANs is another matter and may or may not be helpful.

Have fun

ShivasEye

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Cryptography course notes

A link followed from slashdot with course notes on a cryptographt course form the U of Washington.
Lecture Slides and Video Archives
Lecture Slides and Video Archives

Thursday, June 01, 2006

BBC NEWS | Technology | Fuel cells in laptops edge closer

BBC NEWS | Technology | Fuel cells in laptops edge closer

An interesting development. I have been keeping an eye out for things like this, not for the bleeding edge but for things that are usable and affordable by the less experimental person in the street.
10 hours of use off the prototype. Hmmm....think of the uses for that....LAN party in the park - all day!
What with GPRS and WiFi technology being so prevalent now added to this it looks like I am heading towards the idea I mooted in an IRC channel 7 or 8 years ago about being able to IRC for the long hours I did whilst enjoying the fresh air outside.

Afterthought: I really need to tidy up and rejig that website.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Skype offers free calling to phones in U.S., Canada

Okay - this is probably not news to most people by now. I got it via slashdot. It is something I use to communicate with family members on a transatlantic basis and this may be useful.
Now if only they would do skypeIn for free?

[print version] Skype offers free calling to phones in U.S., Canada | CNET News.com

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Action for blind people

A friend of mine recently got a short term contract with these people. The following is from their home page.

- Home Page: "Action for Blind People is a national charity that provides practical support to blind and partially sighted people through work, housing, leisure and support.

Our vision is quite simple. We believe in a world where people who are blind or partially sighted are enabled to actively participate in society and have equal access to the choices and opportunities that so many take for granted.

Action for Blind People is more than just a name; it is what we do."

Sunday, April 02, 2006

a sideways glance

Something my wife found. (deep breath) This is a blog by the pastor of the church that my wife's manager goes to. It is interesting reading. I also found it interesting to see that he enjoyed some of the same films and books as I do, to whit "Neuoromancer" by William Gibson on the book side with "Donny Darko" and "Fargo" in the cinematic category.

I also enjoyed that his synopsis of himself is so short and nicely structured. I cannot quite put my finger on why I like it but here it is...

a sideways glance: "I'm a passionate follower of Jesus. I'm a husband and a dad. I pastor a church in a London suburb. I'm the author of Why Bother with Church?"

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

What about time stamps?

I have been looking at the included feeds on my main blog, one of them includes a list from this one.
There seems to be a uniformity to the time stamps for the posts. I suspect this may be an issue with the php used to generate it.

On another issue - feeds from blogger appear to be load the results of the link in the iframe and elsewhere (although only one is currently present) it will use the whole page for the link. There is no obvious targetting that I can see - unless there is something hidden in the XML feed. It may be related to one being atom and the other being something else.

Something to be pondered.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Experiments in blogging

An interesting idea is one in which you can send an email and have the contents added to the blog automagically.
This might be an idea for those "on the fly" annoucnement moments.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Something to start with

I have been experimenting with blogs and helping someone "debug" theirs.
One of the problems I had with the debug procedure was unfamiliarity with the blogger way of doing things.
Hopefully this will give me a chance to work out any subtleties and enable me to assist people better.