Cycling: North Berwick this time

On Saturday I took a 30 mile cycle out to North Berwick. The tail (westerly) wind did help, and helped my decision on whether to cycle west, north or east.
I took a couple of stops along the way for refreshments. I got into North Berwick about 5pm, just as the sun was setting.
When I got to the train station, the train was due to leave in about 5 minutes time. There was an announcement to say that it was 10 minutes late. Did it appear? Nope. The next one appeared and left on time though. One thing that I noticed is that with the train being electric, it is considerably quieter than the desiel trains that run between Edinburgh-{Glasgow, Bathgate, Fife via Stirling}.

Cycling: Riccarton to Falkirk & 2 punctures in a fortnight

A week past Wednesday, I took a cycle straight from university along the Union canal to Falkirk. It was the furthest West I have cycled along the canal towpath. It was an enjoyable quiet cycle that too just over 4 hours. I needed the exercise.

I even got around to taking a few of pictures on the way. The two photos attached to this post were taken only a few minutes apart, a short distance apart.

I've now seen the Falkirk Wheel, for the first time. As it was very dark by then the pictures of it didn't come out well.

After getting into Falkirk around 8pm, I popped into Tesco for a quick shop, before hopping on the train with my bike home.

The next day I had some horrible slow puncture that got rapidly worse that meant I had to push the bike home. It was a lovely thorn that was stuck in the tyre that caused the puncture. Pushing the thorn out and patching the inner tube seems to have fixed it. The hardest part of the repair was tyre back on to the wheel, but I managed.

Yesterday I managed to get another puncture, this time on the other tyre. It was caused by a bit of glass 8mm long and about 2-4mm wide. It caused so much damage to the inner tube that meant that patching it just didn't work. So after a couple of failed attempts I stuck in a new inner tube.

Cycling from Sighthill to Linlithgow

Yesterday I took a cycle along the union canal. I set out, without deciding exactly where I would turn back. The sun had already set, so it pretty dark going along most of the canal.
It's starting to get colder as the puddles on the tow path were starting to freeze in a few places.
By the time I was 6 miles away from Linlithgow, my bike light was become rather dull, with the warning light on. As I wouldn't have enough light to get all the way back home from there, I decided to take the train from Linlithgow to Edinburgh Park station for £3.30. At Edinburgh Park I was the only one to get off the train. It was only about 5 minutes from there home.
Acording to Google Earth, I cycled about 19 miles in around 2 hours.

2nd Mac Porters Meeting

I made the whirlwind trip to Hamburg for the 2nd Mac Porters Meeting at the Google offices there. I seem to have survived my first flying trip (in both senses). It was great to meet the porters in person again or for the first time.

I really liked the Eurostar on my Lyon trip, far smoother in parts, though longer. You can also move around a lot more on the Eurostar and have no seat belts too. Now all we need is for a high speed rail link between Edinburgh and London that make the Eurostar even better.

It was great being able to play with a Mac Pro! Even without ccache installed, a build of OpenOffice.org takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes. This is dramatically less than the current build times that I'm getting on my MacBook, of around 8 hours. Now I really want one, but simply cannot afford it. :-(

It is also quite nice to have a shot of working with 2 monitors with my MacBook. It is a lot better to be able to work with different part of a project on different screens. For example, the source code on one and the result on the other screen. However I'm trying to put off getting a monitor until I have a job or can afford it.

With the help of Oliver Braun, I managed to get the link to the Applications folder inside the disk image working properly. I was very close to getting the line of make file in the correct place. We're looking at possibly increasing the size of the background image to make it look a bit better. Follow issue 72008 to track the integration and testing of my patches.

Minutes of the events on Saturday are available on Eric Bachard's blog. Sunday's events should be coming soon. EDIT: The events from Sunday are available.

I have to thank Martin Kretzschmar for his sofa, otherwise I would never have gone.

EHIC scams

It would appear that there are a few people who are running some scams to try and make money out of people trying to get a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). Please be aware that this card is free to apply for.

To apply for the card you should go to the official site at https://www.ehic.org.uk/ which has the option of doing an online application. It also gives you the correct information.

Examples of some scam sites are:

• Charge you £15 to put the information into their database, and then they just transfer the information into the Department of Health's department of Health's database by entering the information into the form for you. Errm wait a minute you just filled in a form and paid £15 for someone to enter the information that you entered into another form.
• Give you a 090 number which costs £1.50/minute instead of a national rate number that the department of Health setup specifically for the EHIC. The call just gets routed through to the national rate number that you call.
• Give false and inaccurate information about the EHIC.

Before anyone asks, I haven't been caught out by any of these scam, though have noticed them. The department of Health already knew about them and is in the process of taking action against the site owners.

Photos from my trip to France (OpenOffice.org conference and Apple Expo)

Please take a look at http://www.byphotos.com/album/4050544 which contains all the photos from my trip.

I know some of them have not been rotated.

It was the first time I can remember being in London. Over a decade ago I had been round the M25 on the way to Dover, it was so long ago, I can't remember, mind you I would probably have been sleeping at time.

There are some pictures of the trams and trolley buses in Lyon in there, if anyone is interested.

I found it quite good at being able to catch the sunset whilst on the Eurostar on leaving France.

OOoCon2006 and Apple Expo

It was quite some trip to France, considering my rather minimal French knowledge. I survived even with the communication barrier. I also found it quite a tiresome journey too, especially with getting very little sleep on the coach overnight from Edinburgh to London. I sorted it out for the return by taking a fleece on as hand luggage to lean on.

The best part of the trip was venturing out of the country on my own, and meeting many people that I have only communicated with eletronically before hand. It quite a surprise to me, to come across someone who also lived in my home city of Edinburgh.

For those that are interested, even so I now have a passport, I have never flown in a plane before. For this trip it was cheaper and more flexible to take the overnight coach with National Express from Edinburgh to London, then walk across London to the Eurostar terminal. I then travelled by train all the way to Lyon, with a change in Paris (and a run on the underground). I can now even say I have travelled on a double decker train (they seem to be unique to France, please correct me if I'm wrong).

I then stayed in Lyon for 3 day in the Hotel du Helder. It seemed quite nice, especially when the staff were able to speak English. After the OpenOffice.org conference, I traveled with Eric Bachard to his house to stay the night, and then set off in the morning to Paris for the Apple Expo which was quite impressive. Mind you the random shutdowns of my MacBook didn't help.

On the Friday afternoon, I returned to pick up my stuff from the hotel, and get off to Paris Nord to catch the Eurostar home. Arrived about 35 minutes before departure to a long queue, and still got on the train and it left on time too. I doubt you would be able to manage that one if I was travelling by plane. I then had another wander through London to the Victoria Coach Station for the over night coach back into Edinburgh.

OK, door-to-door it does take longer, but I sure it used less fuel that an aeroplane taking off.

Edinburgh Travel Survey

The City of Edinburgh Council, Lothian Buses and Colin Buchanan are doing the "Edinburgh Travel Survey" to make a model of travel in Edinburgh.

The only reason I found out about the suvey was because I just happened to to be on a 22.

Take a look at http://www.edinburghtravelsurvey.com. To see for yourself what the survey is.

Buses in Edinburgh

The dispute with Lothian Buses drivers is now over.

Great, I'll get the refund for the inconvenience of buses not turning up.


I have noticed that they are trying to bull-doze through the trams, when there are far too many buses runing in the place that the trams are due to run.

Edinburgh City Centre

Lothian Buses have come out with a leaflet detailing the changes from the 19 June 2005 regarding the City of Edinburgh Council's so called Central Edinburgh Traffic Management Scheme (CETM). There will be even MORE buses on Princes Street. Grrr.
All the buses via George Street or Queen Street are being diverted away over to Princes Street. Why??
Supposedly to reduce congestion. Eh? Take longer to get to where you want to go maybe, though extra diversions, you end up using extra fuel, and by the way paying extra tax.

Unfortunately, almost all the buses in the city go via the city centre, so avoiding the city centre as much as possible could prove very difficult. Especially after Lothian Buses cut all the circular service back in July 2003.