Cycling: Edinburgh to Glasgow and back

On Saturday I cycled from Edinburgh to Glasgow along the National Cycle Network Route 75 (except the bits where I missed some signs and got lost). Then to get back home I used the Forth and Clyde canal to Falkirk, where I switch to the Union Canal back into Edinburgh.

This is the first time that I have knowingly cycled over 100 miles in one day. It took me about 12 and a half hours to get there and back. I was expecting it to take another hour or two to do the journey. Heading West took longer due to the head wind and getting lost a few times due to the National Cycle Network not being well sign posted in places and not having been in the area before.

Going through North Lanarkshire isn't particularly great on the bike due to the very high amount of broken glass lying around on the cycle paths. Livingston has some glass lying around in a few places, but it is no where near as bad as heading through the North Lanarkshire council area.

Google album:

Cycling Edinburgh to Glasgow and back

See the route.

8 Core MacPro

Apple has released the 3GHz 8 Core MacPro. Apple have just added an extra processor option to the MacPro line.
It is available in the US for an extra $1498 over the base MacPro. It doesn't appear to be available in the UK store just now.
Now all I need to do is learn how to earn enough to afford one.

Cycling: Edinburgh, Airdrie and Canals Circle

Yesterday I took a long 80 mile cycle. Initially I headed West from Colinton in Edinburgh through to Airdrie. In Airdrie I lost track of the sign posts for the National Cycle Route 75. So I headed North to the Forth and Clyde Canal to Falkirk. At Falkirk I joined the Union canal home.

There was only 2 hilly sections of the route. There is a steady climb from Colinton to Balerno. Though from Balerno towards Kirknewton there is a steep downhill. Heading from Airdrie to the Forth and Clyde Canal there were quire a few hills that I went over.

Along the Bathgate to Airdrie section there is a series of large artworks along the path.


At Falkirk the sun was setting behind the Falkirk Wheel as I was passing.


I was surprised that I didn't get another puncture going through Livingston or on the Airdrie side of the Bathgate to Airdrie Cycle Path, with the amount of broken glass lying around.

The longest cycled in one day was about 70 miles to Berwick Upon-Tweed. So yesterday set a new record. Not much more now until I cycle 100 miles in one day.

OpenOffice.org Language Pack Revamp

As sent out to some of the OpenOffice.org mailing lists:

At the moment there are a number of issues with the current language packs for OpenOffice.org. Some platforms such as Mac OS X don't have language packs, instead they only have full installsets. The language packs currently have to be built on each platform individually. This means extra compilation time and extra storage on the mirror network since essentially the same localisation data is packaged into a different package for every platform.

I have a proposal for dramatically improving the current situation.

Let's have cross-platform language packs. This will mean that the language packs will be built once, and can then be used on ANY platform. This will save build time, especially when a builder can just use their fastest machine, instead of having to do it once per platform. This will free up developer and builder time, as well as space on the mirror network.

With this change I'm looking at implementing a simple user installation of language packs, similar to what has just been added to OpenOffice.org 2.2 for extensions. This would enable platform integration for the language pack installation. We could possibly go as far as Firefox and deploy language packs in a very similar way to extensions. We could even have the option to install language packs just for one user or for all users of the installation. If the platform supports it, a server deployed location for the language packs should be possible.

This is just an idea, it needs more development before implementation. No implementation testing has been done yet. An initial idea check for daftness has been completed, which is why this mail is going out. I'm looking to see if there are any foreseeable problems with this proposal, and whether there is backing from the whole OpenOffice.org community.

Comments are more than welcome.

Open Source Mapping

Today I came across mapping wiki style. OpenStreetMap aims to provide free geographic data of the whole world.
The current problems with most maps is that they are have copyright on them, and they have special easter eggs or gotchas to determine copying of the maps. This is a problem for projects that need to be able to use maps in the form of free speech, rather than free beer. Google Maps for example can be used like free beer, but not in the form of free speech.

The amount of data available is currently fairly low, so I would start using the maps for major map planning yet. However you can help, by mapping some part of the world that you know well.

I have recently been using MapMyRide.com for mapping out my Cycle trips. It uses Google Maps, which unfortunately does not contain enough information like the canals for example. This makes it difficult to do some mapping, especially in areas where their maps are of low resolution.

Union Canal resurfacing in Edinburgh

Today was the first time that I cycled along the Union Canal from the canal basin near Tollcross in Edinburgh to Wester Hailes in the West of the City. The surface was very smooth and without the potholes that were there before. In many places, the path is wider than what it was before.
The nice weather has also got people out, as the canal towpath was fairly busy, compared to what I have seen it before.

OpenOffice.org Mac Port timeline updated

Further to Eric Bachard's mention on his blog. I have now updated the time line for the Mac Port of OpenOffice.org and added a new news item for it.

We are currently looking at a May 2007 release for the Alpha of OpenOffice.org Aqua. Around the end of the year we hope to have a beta release of OpenOffice.org Aqua available.

British Summer Time from tomorrow

It's that time of year again when all the clocks in Europe change again. Tonight at 1AM the clocks all jump forward an hour. Being in the UK, it is nice that during the Winter, my current time is GMT/UTC. However, during the Summer, I'm an hour out from GMT/UTC. This does confuse me at the start of the summer. The change in sunrise and sunset compared to local time is annoying too.

Thanks to Pavel, I learned a new flag for the the date command on unix based systems. If you run date -u, you get the current time in GMT/UTC rather than your current local time when running the command without the flag.

Cycling: Dunblane to Edinburgh

On Sunday afternoon, there was some strong Westerly winds, so rather than cycling into the wind, I decided to cycle with the wind. Rather than do my usual of cycle somewhere, and then take the train home if it isn't a circular route, or I'm too tired; I took the train out to Dunblane and started cycling from there.

It took about an hour to get from Edinburgh Park to Dunblane. The train diverted via Falkirk High instead of Falkirk Grahamson and missing out Camelon due to some essential rail maintenance. After Falkirk High the train stopped to turn around and head in the other direction so that it could go north towards Dunblane. The cost was £4.10.

On getting off the train at Dunblane, I looked North and though "oh no, the heavens are about to open". The sky was very dark with very heavy and dark cloud. I set on my way hoping that I wouldn't get totally soaked. Heading down into Bridge of Allan, there was a little flurry of snow. There wasn't enough for it to lie on the ground. After Bridge of Allan, I headed through Stirling, Tullibody, Alloa to Kincardine on the North Side of the River Forth.

Due to the high winds the Forth Road Bridge was closed, so I headed South over the Kincardine Bridge to Grangemouth. There I headed into a head wind into Falkirk. At Falkirk I joined the Union Canal beside Falkirk High Station. I now know how Falkirk High got its name. It sits at the top of a hill on the south side of Falkirk.

I probably would have been faster keeping to the road, though the canal towpath is much simpler since you are unlikely to take a wrong turn.

The total distance that I cycled was about 54 miles. It took me about 5 hours and 40 minutes in total, with a couple of breaks.

Map of the Route

Cycling: Edinburgh to Stirling

Yesterday I took a cycle from Edinburgh to Stirling, following fairly close to the Firth of Forth and River Forth further West.

It was pretty clear when I set out, unfortunately it slowly got damper later on. Heading through Grangemouth the rain came on quite heavy. By the time I had started leaving Grangemouth, the rain was down to either nothing or just a light mist. It was a pretty strong head wind most of the way.

In many of the back roads that the National Cycle routes take you, it is a lot more sheltered and often more hilly. I decided to avoid Blackness, the low road through Bo'ness and from Bo'ness to Grangemouth, where I used the main roads instead of the minor back roads.

I got to Stirling and hopped on to a train home. It cost £4.10 to get back into Edinburgh. The train took about 50 minutes, compared to just over 4 hours for the cycle into the head wind.

I even took some photos.