Facebook Feed

Facebook's import of my Blog into its "Notes" section has been on the blink for a few weeks and today finally gave up on me - so I've reconfigured the feed and re-synchronised everything, so hopefully it will stay up to date now. Apologies for any confusion.

New Toy: A little MP3 player.

As a bit of a techie I like my gadgets. I'm not over the top in this respect, but I like it when technology can improve my life or do something useful. So when I buy new "toys", I've generally thought quite hard about it.

I really don't intend to start making this a "Gadget Review Blog", but when I buy new "toys" I'll try and say why I bought them and what I think about them in the hope that my thoughts benefit someone else - or myself at a later date.

Why buy a little MP3 player?

The background to this is that, after much deliberation, I bought a big-proper 30GB Apple iPod about a year ago. I'm very pleased with this and it's good for long journeys, by train or car, or to give me a day's tunes at work. But, despite being almost miraculously small for what it does, it's too big and too fragile to be used when walking, cycling (on quiet roads only of course), or when at the gym.

So, for a while I've been thinking about a cheap, ultra-small, solid-state music player to go alongside it. For the less-technical, solid-state means that it has no moving parts. Given that I like iTunes (for reasons I won't go into here), an iPod Shuffle seems like the obvious choice - as it will easily sync to an iTunes playlist (or smart playlist). It took a while to come around to the idea of a player without a screen, but I can see how it fulfills the need to just shove something in your pocket full of your favourite tunes, and go. So a Shuffle has been on my shopping list for a while.

THEN, I discovered iTunes Agent, which is a far-from perfect piece of software, but one which allows you to sync non-Apple devices with iTunes. This opens up the possibilities a bit more.

Originally I sync'ed my Sony Ericsson Walkman mobile phone with it, and took that to the gym a few times. However, the controls on the walkman phone aren't great (they get locked out by the phone's "auto-lock" feature) but then I found the Creative "Stone".

The "Stone" is Creative's equivalent of the iPod Shuffle. It's got 1GB capacity, no display, simple controls and ~8 hours battery life. At around £23, it's about half the price of an iPod Shuffle! Bargain.

So I got one. Here it is with headphones, close up, and next to some chewing gum for scale!



Looks pretty. Looks TINY!!! But does it do the job?

And I'm happy to say that yes, it does. It's easy to use, sounds good and does everything that it says it does. I've not had the battery run out on me yet. It feels sturdy and has survived many hours in my pocket already without much damage.

I could only pick out three odd things, though these are more observations than annoyances.

1. It can only be charged from a USB port. It comes with a short mini-USB cable to do this, but other charging options would be nice. Having said that, charging is quick and the battery lasts a good while, particularly as it's not a device I'll use for LONG periods of time.
   
2. It takes a while to start up. When you turns it on there's about 20 seconds of silence before it does anything. My guess is that it's scanning the files that you've loaded onto it. Fortunately it only does this after a total shutdown. You can happily pause and restart music and it will only turn completely off if you leave it paused for a long time.
3. Unlike the iPod Shuffle, it doesn't have a "hold" switch - used to "lock" the controls so that you don't make accidental button presses when the thing is in your pocket. However, this isn't a problem as the buttons are very nicely set up so that they need too much force to press accidentally, but not so much that you can't easily use the controls.

Overall, I like my "Stone" and I'm glad I bought it. It serves a simple purpose and will make many a trip to the gym with me. I'd recommend it to someone that wants a simple, cheap, micro-sized media player, and with iTA, you can sync with iTunes and have a "Shuffle" equivalent for half the price.

Error messages and defensive programming

So here it is. I'm a geek! There, it's out, you can all start jeering me and calling me a spod and asking where my sandals are, or, at the very least, call me up asking why your screen has turned a nice shade of purple.

This therefore might not make complete sense to all of you.

The other day at work I did a software upgrade on a test system. Once the main upgrade was complete it was supposed to automatically go round and upgrade some components on some remote systems. Because I don't trust this process I was logged on to the remote server and watched it happen. And I watched it fail. The process just stopped without doing what it was supposed to do. I then tried to do the upgrade on the remote system manually and that failed too.

I logged the fault with my software supplier and today they came back to me to say that it had initially failed because a disk was full, and that when I manually tried to re-run it, it failed again because a file was locked.

So, we pay thousands of pounds for this software and they people that develop it can't even write:

$SUCCESS=open($FILE)
if (not $SUCCESS)
then
log_error("An error occurred while opening $FILE")
end if

Admittedly an error like this was written to a (very large and mostly indecipherable) log file, but did it not occur to them that this might be something that the user might like to know about?

I despair sometimes.

A good ride and a few new things

It's Bike week!

To celebrate I did 13.75 miles round the hills of Wroughton and Chiseldon. A good hilly ride that I did with a really fit friend and actually managed to keep up!

This week I've discovered a funky kettle that heats water on demand in a few seconds. Genius. I'm forever switching the kettle on, walking off and then forgetting about it (repeat three times before ACTUALLY making a cup of coffee). It's expensive but I reckon it'd pay for itself quickly (the manufacturer says 2 years) and save loads of energy too!

I also discovered Bikely.com further to my post about route planning, Bikely is now my favourite way of doing cycle routes. It gives gradient profiles, allows you to share routes, downloads routes so that you can do fly-throughs in Google Earth. The only thing it doesn't really do is give you a decent map of a long route. You can get a crib sheet with vague directions but I would want to do a long ride on roads that I don't know with just that. Recommended!

Blatant Plug: Iko

I'd like to recommend a band. A band who don't quite have the status of "next big thing" but who, in my opinion, thoroughly deserve it. A band who, as far as I can tell, have been on the verge of being "big" for about 5 years.

I recommend them not because the lead singer and guitarist is an old friend of a friend, but because I think they're music and songwriting is fantastic, and because I think they have a really unique sound that should be appreciated by more people.

I appreciate that music is subjective. You may hate them. But please try them out? They are Iko and they've just released a little video of their recent tour of Denmark. They live at http://www.ikomusic.com and http://www.myspace.com/ikomusic

Thank you.

Bit of a break...

Been away on holiday somewhere where there was no internet - we didn't even take the laptop with us! I have lots to write about so hopefully I'll catch up soon. Notes from while I'm away will probably be backdated to when I wanted to write them so you may already have read some of those notes.

Relaxing and Holidays and Relaxing Holidays

Saturday - the end of our week in Cornwall. And what a lovely time we've had. We're travelling back via Devon to visit Sally's folks and we are staying over with them.

This holiday marks an important change for me. I normally think of myself as not being very good at holidays. I normally find it hard to relax and want to go home after a few days. But this week has been really easy and I've enjoyed it a lot...so much so that I wanted to stay. In fact, I think I could have stayed for another whole week!!

I don't really know why this is but I'll certainly be making a mental note that I like longer holidays from now on.

Holiday cycling

Friday - sad to be heading home.

Did a short walk in the morning to Poltesco - a lovely little National Trust-owned cove only a couple of miles from Cadgwith. It finally rained!!

But this post is mostly about holiday cycling. We've made our first use of the rack that my dad gave us that lets us put the bikes on the car and go places. It was a bit nerve racking at first but it's very secure!

It's been such a busy holiday that we only actually did 2 rides. On Tuesday to Helford (see the post from that day and the route on Bikely), and today, in the afternoon, I did a faster ride by myself on the same route we did to Helford, but only as far as Newtown.

These have been good rides. Slightly hilly but quiet roads. A bit disappointing that some roads were very narrow so you didn't want to get too much speed up in case anything came the other way.

Fitness-wise, I've got a new strain in the form of an aching wrist, but I had this on the way to Cornwall in the car and so it's probably related to driving!

I'd definitely take the bikes away on holiday again!

Waste Neutrality, the Eden Project, and saving the planet.

Wednesday of our holiday in Cornwall, and a visit to the Eden Project! You mostly hear good things about it but occasionally you meet someone that thought it was rubbish. I can see why people might not like it but I thought it was fascinating, beautiful, educational and inspiring.

A visit to the Eden Project raises lots of questions about our planet. I'd probably fall into the category of very-nearly-green-hippy. Partly driven by my faith - my belief in a creator and in our duty to look after His creation - and partly driven by science and common sense, I believe we should reduce, recycle and reuse as much as possible.

I've been having a lot of conversations at work about being green. Mostly with people who slightly mock the concept of being overtly, or overly, environmentally friendly. Mostly with people who think I'm silly for cycling in the rain (but that's another issue altogether). I feel in a minority there.

But most of the discussions aren't actually about the concepts of waste, wastefulness, packaging, reuse of materials and consumerism. Most of the discussions are about "Carbon Footprints", which I don't really understand myself and which, to me, seem to be just marketing to make us feel good about buying a product or service. But I don't actually get what it means to put a tonne of carbon dioxide into the air! In contrast, I DO get what it means to put a plastic bag in a landfill. It means that I've wasted some oil - a precious natural resource that will, one day pretty soon now, run out - in order to produce something that I've then discarded on a big heap and which will sit there being a plastic bag in the way, for a VERY long time.

I'm all for being carbon neutral. But I'm more for thinking about how much stuff we use and throw away. And by "use" I include "burn to make energy", which means that my concept of "reducing" includes lowering emissions, but, so I think, seems to be a more holistic approach.

What's this got to do with my holiday and the Eden Project?

Well, there aren't many things that I don't like about the lovely cottage that we're staying in, but one thing that bugs me is that we can't recycle. Everything is thrown in the bin (well, we're going to take some stuff home with us too). This means that in 5 days we've produced about 2 times as much waste as we'd normally produce at home. It's shocking how, without compost and recycling, it mounts up so quickly.

In contrast, the Eden Project was keen to talk about how it was trying to be "waste neutral". Reducing the amount of waste that they produce, reusing items where it is possible, recycling what's left, and buying recycled goods (and thus creating demand for recycled products).

It's expensive, and it sounds like hard work and lots of thinking. They declare it to be "a philosophy for life". It's a challenge to all of us. It's a challenge to me! How much do I think about the waste that will be produced by an item that I buy? How often do I get lazy and throw something away because to take it home and recycle it would be too much hard work? Am I willing to pay a bit extra for something that's locally sourced, recycled, or in "green" packaging?

One other thing that I wondered was, are we doing enough? That is are we DOING enough?

The Eden Project sells lots of books. Mostly books about being green and ethical. It's good to read (or write!) an article or book about this kind of thing. It's good to be inspired by the wonders of nature on display at the Eden Project and feel protective of our amazing planet. It's good to read about how others are adopting this philosophy for life. It's good to think and ask the questions.

But when we get to the supermarket, or need to travel somewhere nearby, or book a holiday, or are throwing something in the bin...when we have a choice to make a difference...what are we actually going to choose to do?

Discovering the National Trust

It's the Tuesday of our week's holiday in Cornwall.

Yesterday we did a lovely walk around the bottom of the Lizard from Cadgwith Cove (very near where we are staying) along the coast path to Lizard Point and then on to Kynance Cove before tracking back, inland, to Cadgwith.

Today we had a really nice day, cycling north up the Lizard to the Helford estuary (about 10 miles), then getting the passenger ferry to Glendurgan gardens on the other side of the estuary.

Now, I should point out that my wife recently started working for the National Trust, which comes with the great benefit of free entry to the National Trust's properties.

I've never really considered the National Trust as something of much interest. It makes you think of big, stuffy old mansion houses and random bits of old castle. But having been to a few places you start to realise how good the work that they do is, AND, having a link with them, you start to notice how much they look after.

Here's where we've been in a few months that's owned by the National Trust:

• Lacock
• Buscot Castle Drogo
• Lizard Coast
• Lizard Point
• Kynance Cove
• Glendurgan Gardens
• and we'll be going to St Michael's Mount later in the week

Here are some things that have impressed me about the National Trust:

• They own LOADS of stuff: much of the Lizard's coastline, many small coves and sites of beauty or scientific interest, lots of interesting buildings and gardens. Some of it is well known and listed in their handbook, but lots of it is just land that they care for and preserve that's not listed anywhere and is open to anyone for free!
• Their facilities are always really good: clean toilets, good information, friendly staff, well organised, well sign posted, lots of free leaflets, good food in their cafe's. The quality of what they do is always excellent.
• They care for people: related to good facilities, but also in Sally's working for them, you can see that people are important to them and their quality and integrity stems from that.
• They care for the environment: they take the view that there's no point preserving all this stuff if the world's being messed up around it. To that end they put their money where their mouth is and invest in things like solar panels, using their own resources, using renewable energy and materials, recycling, fair trade and so on. They're also keen on promoting environmental issues to their members.

I'm really very impressed, to the extent that I'd pay for membership now- not just to get free entry to all their properties, but to support the good work that they do.

If you don't know much about the National Trust, look them up, find out what they do, look out for their land and properties and I hope you'll agree that they do a great job and are worth supporting.

How do I know if I've got spiritual gifts?

We've been doing a thing at our church called a SHAPE course. SHAPE is an acronym, standing for "Spritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences". It's intended to help you look at those five things, think a bit about what things you have that fit into those categories, and work out what things you might be able to do well in serving God.

The Spiritual Gifts bit was first and, as you might expect, raised the most questions.

It's clear from the Bible, more so in the New Testament, but also in the Old, that God gives particular "gifts" or abilities to people and he does this "by his spirit"...that is, those abilities are specifically given by God in a "supernatural" kind of way.

From my point of view, gifts of the spirit fall into two categories:

1) things that are always obviously of God when they happen, such as:

• healing
• prophecy (speaking God's thoughts to groups of people)
• words of knowledge (when God tells you something - like prophecy but different)
• miracles
• tongues/languages and interpretation.

I will call these the "difficult gifts" - because it's more difficult to believe that we have them, and requires more faith to use them...I think.

2) things that might be of God but you can never be sure, such as:

• music
• administration
• hospitality
• wisdom
• teaching
• leadership

I specifically draw a line here between the "difficult" gifts and the "non-difficult" gifts because this is the main thing I want to speak about.

In my experience the "difficult" spiritual gifts are less commonly found. I know lots of people who seem to be blessed by God with real ability in music, hospitality, and teaching. I know few prophets, healers and miracle workers.

Yet it doesn't make sense to me that God would distribute the gifts unevenly. In fact, because he's such an awesome God who should choose to reveal himself and his thoughts to his people, I would expect to see MORE healers and prophets than the easier things.

Which makes me wonder if maybe there are lots of people that are healers, prophets, miracle workers, etc that don't know if they have those gifts? And if this is the case, how do we nurture these gifts in people? How should the church encourage people to "seek the greater gifts" as the bible says? How do we know if we have the difficult gifts if we don't have opportunities to try and use them? How shall we go about discovering who our prophets and healers are?

This is really the main thing I've learned from the SHAPE course. That we should be praying and asking God for the difficult gifts - he tells us to do this. But how practically should we be trying out these things if we think that God has given them to us?

Movements and Organisations

A friend has given me a very interesting little book to read to read called "Accompanying young people on their spiritual quest".

It's a cracking book and very well written (that's very high praise from me!) and, oddly, my first interesting thought about it is not about the book's key subject.

While discussing how the church perceives young people it introduces the topic of Movements and Organisation.

In this case the "movement" is the Christian religion. The notion being that the "church" (by which I mean the global body of people who profess faith in Jesus Christ) is not static. To quote the book "its thinking and practices remain open to question and open to change".

Yet any large "movement" requires some form of "organization". Which poses a problem, because organizations have boundaries and procedures which limit movement.

It's a continual challenge, I find, at work, in my local church, in my friendships and relationships, even at home, to be disciplined and organised, and yet, remain open to change. On the one hand I'm a very organised individual who likes order and structure and gets annoyed when things are out of place. On the other hand, I retain the right to change my views, move on, do things differently. There is a creative part of me that likes to operate outside of formal structures.

It's important not to become legalistic about anything, especially in the Christian faith where the central concept is love: a thing that has no real boundary or definition and which, practically, can be expressed in many, many ways. AND it is a thing which means different things to different people. It can't be given an organisation because it's too woolly to pin down to a process.

Organising can be difficult for the similar reasons. What organisation works for one person may not work for another. Some churches have very set forms, called liturgy. Written out words that are spoken or sung during a service. Some church services are entirely based around such liturgies. Others have no written form whatsoever. Who's to say what's right. Horses for courses isn't it?

Which all leads to much confusion. How do we love? How do we organise? How do we not become legalistic?

We see in the bible how Jesus, our role model for all that we do, interacts with children. "Become like them" he says, as he gives the legalistic priests a good telling off about their stubborn ways. Yet when faced with a large group with some work to do Jesus organises them, splits them up, gives them instructions, and sends them out.

One of the "Accompanying" book's ideas is that children represent the movement side of church, wanting to grow, but not necessarily according to the rules of the church organisation. I wonder what we can learn from them about moving on, and about growing in our faith and in who we are as people. I wonder if we need to rebel occasionally against strict organisation. I wonder if we need more chaos in our lives or the other way around?

I've love to draw a conclusion, state something profound that I've learned from thinking about this and say what I'm going to do about it, but I think this is probably a journey. One of those things that we'll never get right, and a balance that we'll always be tweaking with.

One thing I've learned since becoming a Christian is that answers aren't always necessary. Sometimes it's just as important to just ask the questions.

Weddings

Yesterday was the wedding of some good friends of ours. A brilliant day, great church service, good worship, very much a wedding where God was present. A real sense of two becoming one and a change of status in their relationship.

It was interesting going to a Christian wedding with a mixed bunch of people (some who would prefess a faith in Jesus and others who wouldn't). It made me wonder what other people make of Christian weddings.

I always find Christian weddings special. It's not just a spoken commitment with a bit of ritual wrapped around it. The parts of the typical English wedding ceremony are all very meaningful to Christians; from the opening words of the vicar, the songs, the ceremony itself, the prayers, through to the final blessing at the end.

The marriage is centered on the vows and the commitments made in them, and it usually marks a very deep change in the couple's status. Often they have abstained from sex before marriage, and probably haven't lived together. And, of course, there is the real sense of celebration of the bride and groom as individuals, and as a newly formed couple.

Whereas, admittedly not all of them, but most church weddings of non-Christian people, I find a bit false. It's odd to hear people speaking and singing things that they don't necessarily believe, and I find it odd when the party afterwards is made more important than the marriage itself. This is not a sensation that has been exclusive to my Christian life. I went to a church wedding of some friends even before I started finding out about God and it just felt awkward.

Yet I find myself wondering what other people make of it all. Do people who don't follow the Christian faith find Weddings of believers different to weddings of non-believers? Does it seem "special" to them? Does it seem more meaningful? I wonder what our worship looks like from the outside?

Of course, I don't wish to devalue the marriage of people who don't follow Christ. The commitment of marriage is incredibly special and I support it, uphold it, and respect it however it is done. I would much rather people get married, if it's the right thing for them to do, than not get married!

But as a little windows into the lives and rituals of believers, I wonder how these ceremonies look and feel to others, what effect it has on them, and what we might be able to learn from their experiences.

Route Planning news

There are many better ways to plan a route than Google maps, especially for a cyclist. But I love it because it's so FAST and so EASY to use.

However, I found a few new things today that make it better for route planning.

1. It now has an "Avoid Highways" option, for those of you that don't want to cycle on motorways!
2. It now lets you go "via" somewhere...though this isn't entirely clear. You can set a destination and then click "Add destination" button to go somewhere else. Though you can drag and drop your destinations around to re-order them. You can also use the syntax "to:destination" to add more destinations. e.g. "from:Swindon to:Marlborough to:Bath"