Croeso

Blog Walk 2.0

Seblogging has announced BlogWalk 2.0

It was such an interesting meeting last time, I'll be keen to see where we go this time around

Cymro gorau, Cymro oddi catref

Ah it says it all

The joys of a Pocket PC

I just found myself chatting to Hanneke Lambrets (KM @ KPMG ex Pink Roccade) on the phone, listening to an Acid Jazz MP3 and mid blogging (last post), having previuosly just checked my email. Now all I need is a little rubber band to hold my device in it's holder that supports the IR keyborad (has a nifty little mirror at the top to reflect the IR signal) when the headphones are connected. Or figure out how my bluetoot headset works with the Windows Media Player, as it only seems to work with the phone?.

Hmm this wired world, or at least mine is comin together nicely!..

I had a few queries on my iPod post

People have been reacting to my forgetful posting. Interestingly enough most still came via email and not via the comments section of the blog. That's something I want to explore later, but now back to my posting. To clarify a bit and to answer my commentors (emailers really) the search I'm talking about is searching your own archives not others. ie if we've forgotten we did something we'd never search our own c: drive as we are not expecting to find anything . Mind you in my opinion people do not search others archives/common systems either but we'll leave that to another posting

Shell's story

Well I'm on the train going to Tilburg visiting Aldo de Moor .He will (or is keen to) write up the Shell story of CoPs .I've always avoided this in the past due to time constraint's .But now it makes sense due to the fact that it may benefit Basell and Shell people before we forget what we have learned. It also very useful every now and again to reflect with nostalgia. Of course I'be helping guiding and explaining. We hope to publish this in a journal and maybe as a chapter of an up and coming book. It should be fun so watch this space. Of course we have publised a little before

Value for Money?

I just bought a new DVD RW/CD RW drive with an extra IDE controller for my PC, (so I can rip 4 CDs at a time to MP3 to speed up the Rome fiddling process - quite right Euan!) and paid 59.95 euro for both items.

Now one part of my brain thinks crickey that's great, the other says hang on some poor soul is working slave labour to manufacture and package these items. Hmm the latter thought always dominates with me, it's hard to take the socialist out of this Welsh executive.

I wonder if in my lifetime if an EU style social chapter will ever be applied to China? being a socialist country n all

iPoding my Music

Well I've just started to 'rip' (I think I'm ripping anyway) my CD collection onto the iPod, and what is striking me is how many of the CDs I've bought I've completely forgotten about, and even the reason why and where I bought it.
This is a parallel to my experience with databases for archive material (aka Knowledge Bases). It's amazing what we forget even if we have written it down, and we tend to only search when we think there is something to be found. So if we forgotten how will we be encouraged to search?

I know the argument is skewed a little but bare with me, I have a large music collection (actually I need 3 40GB iPods just to get the entirety of it on, but I'm culling it down to 1).

Before this exercise i'd of guessed I'd remember wen and where i bought each CD as I looked at it's cover, but hell no. It's amazing how much we forget and it it is not all triggered back by invoking the memory i.e 'I know more than I can write down, and I've forgotten more than i know, but if reminded I can recall what I've forgotten - Dave Snowdon's wise words'. i thought this was true but here are a few CD's i've no clue where they came from - Maybe I'm getting old or the CD fairy has been visiting the house, but I think not.

Hmm we (I) seem to really forget somethings, this must be factored into what we do I feel, I'm just a bit lost at this stage on how exactly to factor that in or what even the practical consequences of it are.

Hmm more thinking ahead I feel.

Oh well 125 down & hundreds to go (I'll be here all year!)

Well well there is hope for us all

An amateur runner has just qualified for the UK Womens Olympic Marathon team after an astounding 2h 33minutes, in her second marathon.

Bloody Marvellous - well done girl.

It's little stories like this that re-in-vigour me to keep pushing KM, as who knows what each and everyone of us can inspire to.

Pocket#MT Software

Well I got this mobile blogging tool working, not sure why it did not work before, but there we are.

See code at Randyrants.com

Magdalene Sisters

Anke and I saw this movie the other night, and this was one of those many occasions that the catholic church appals me!

Book not read

Well wouldn't you know poor Owain was a bit sick last night so I had to dash home and help out, so the BlogTalks book remains in it's wrapper, and as my parents are arriving this evening for a visit I doubt if I'll get time to start before next weekend.

BlogTalks Book just arrived

So that's what I'll be reading whilst I wait for my Volvo to be finished at the garage tonight (few minor repairs and a new car kit for my XDA II!)

I normally hate it when they never finish the car on time but now I have an interesting book to read and by the fact that I'm climbing afterwards (7pm) means I'm in no rush.

MP3's and CD's

My little thoughts whilst waiting for the flight to Milan on MP3 player vs Cd's was crystallised whilst listening to a BBC World Service broadcast coming home from meeting with Carla Anjo Robert and Rogier. It was over a company called we-pod (I think albeit I cannot find their web - page) who send you a box, you fill it with your CD collection and your iPod, and they put the music on the iPod for £1 a disk, and return the Cd's to you with a bulging iPod. Now I know that's expensive, but I never knew iPods were so big (capacity wise of course). So I thought that could mean we put our music collection on an iPod and store all the CDs in the attic.

So last night I downloaded CD to MP3 converter (that also looks up the CD title and tracks for you via a Internet based database) and tried it out by loading a CD to my Pocket PC.

The sound quality was fine and it took about 4 minutes to make the MP3s and place them in my sync folder of my PC. Now being and ex pro I have hundreds of CDs but by my rough calculations a 40 Gig iPod will hold about 650 of them. Also at the moment from the apple store you get a free monster cable to connect to the home audio system amplifier.

You see what we want is space in my new cupboards to store all the music CDs, and that will mean a whole cupboard, that will cost way more than the iPod (assuming I make all the MP3 files), and then if we go the iPod route, we will have more room for books (Of course more books means another cupboard but we are happy about that even though the cash saving is not materialised, but it means less books in the cellar as even with 3 new cupboards, we will not have enough space for all of them)

The IPod will go in the new TV cupboard where the digital amp and DVD sit, which is coming along nicely in my furniture making course at Houtwerk in Renkum with Hans Koot.

Mobile blogging is getting easier

I have found a Pocket PC application that is a Movable Type interface (still no spell checker so back to badly spelt blogging!) it is Pocket#MT from Randyrants

This will make the posting much easier and handles categories etc that I have set-up. There are some minor set-up issues to resolve but I'm sure I'll get that right and we'll be off.

I also have found that using a IR keyboard (At only35 € to boot) also helps me tremendously. The transcriber (handwriting recogniser) is not bad but typing is best. (Let's see how we do it on the train though)

So my mobile blogging kit seems to be coming together, this was posted via the pocket PC whilst feeding my daughter her breakfast!

Hmm one thing you cannot do via a Pocket PC

For some reason via the XdaII the add a hyperlink, mailto, etc buttons are missing from the IE window. Hmm not so handy. I wonder if there's a Pocket PC blogger software available like wblogger.com?

first mobile blog entry

Well here I am sitting at my chiropractor . Blogging via my XDA II. In using this device I still have not figured out if I should use the transcriber (I write - it character recognises ) or if I use the inbuilt keyboard or the full external keyboard ? But let's see how it goes (so far the inbuilt keyboard is winning as it automatically suggests words

Andy Boyd