Author: kymdt

The Saturday morning technology report!

Posted on by kymdt



Technology!!, originally uploaded by kdt.

Well every holiday seems to involve a series of compromises in relation to the technology required to take photos and blog. This time we’ve ditched the hacked Dell Mini running Mac OS X and external hard drive. We have replaced it with two iPads, a photo back-up (Sanho iPad Hyperdrive), wireless router (for fixed internet in hotel rooms). Don’t forget three cameras!!

Well for those contemplating this setup I can provide some advice. The iPads work wonderfully well. Flickr Stackr is a great App fro managing your Flickr account (You can’t use all of the Flickr online functions on iPad’s Safari), Photoshop Express is great for a quick crop, rotate and touch-up. I can not be so glowing about WordPress application for blogging, it seems to have unexplained problems uploading sometimes. I find Flickr’s blog to WordPress function the easiest way to get a photo onto the blog.

The biggest problem is that a typical holiday could involved 40gb of photos, no iPad can handle that. The largest available is 64gb and with Apps and Music that is cutting it fine. So here steps in the Sanho iPad Hyperdrive. It is a portable, battery powered hardrive. It pretends to be a camera card so it can upload photos to the iPad. It also offers incremental backups. Sounds great? It did, we bought one. It has, in my opinion, very flakey operating software. I have had to format the harddrive twice and it seems to have problems with incremental back-ups. In no way would I recommend it someone for a road-trip.

So what gives? Well Apple has made a great platform with the the iPad, but Apple either needs to release a larger iPad (128gb or 256gb would be nice) or it needs to offer a better way of having external storage. Until that time it is a bit of a hassle for a long-road trip. I also hope that the next version of iOS makes it easier to delete events or photo albums on the iPad, currently it seems you can only delete a photo at a time! Ickkk that could cause RSI!

Your on the road technical advisor!

No person need go hungry on tour

Posted on by kymdt



No person need go hungry on tour, originally uploaded by kdt.

The caravan is an amazing temple to consumerism. Like a Christmas Pageant on steroids a very long cavalcade of vehicles with pretty young things gyrating to pulsating dance music travel for the length of each stage. Alternating between taunting and delighting the crowd. The objective is to get the spectators to worship the products. This year a sausage maker is celebrating 40 years – the crowd sings its Happy Birthday in French. The sweet manufacturer has the crowd chanting its name. The bottled water supplier sprays the crowds with water while conducting acrobatic contortions from a slow moving truck. There are banks, newspapers, betting operators, television channels, the police and fireman are represented.

The photo is some of the stuff we have collected in two days. We need buy no more water, madeleines, sweets, snack foods while in France. I have a hat for every occasion, a baguette back (one of the best), pens, bottle openers, washing detergent (yes, that’s right we can wash our clothes), hand clappers, and to Helen’s delight three massive PMU hands.

After 5 Panches (A no alcohol beer freely served to the crowd), Helen was a convert. Oh did I mention the fresh bread and Nutella! If only I were a kid!

If only it passed through poor districts or visited the homeless!

Subway eat your heart out ……

Posted on by kymdt



Subway eat your heart out ……, originally uploaded by kdt.

You may all be expecting a TDF report, but you probably have a better idea of what is happening than I do. We stayed the night in a gorgeous (well priced) guest house at Les Rosaires beach. It has no wifi or tv in our room. A great break from it all (sounding like a person who has been on holiday for weeks and not the actual few days we have).

I digress, the purpose of this post is to share with you the wonders of the French boulangerie and what were described as American sandwiches. They are quite simply what subway should be. A well sized (I.e. Not overdone) piece of fresh baguette (yes, real bread) with a very simple but tasty fillings (no choice overload). Best thing is you can get a fresh pastry and an oragina and the cost for all of it is €10 (for 2 people!!!), that’s cheaper than a footlong and Subway meal deal for one in Australia. What gives?

The photo is one of Helen’s.

Biclooing around Nantes

Posted on by kymdt



Biclooing around Nantes, originally uploaded by kdt.

We have completed the first ride of our bike trip. This wasn’t one that has been agonised over for weeks, days or even hours. We had a need to find our car hire place.

We walked out of our hotel across to the train station, just happened across some fine French pastries (oops) and then we found the Bicloo stand. It was like a siren calling a captain. We gravitated helplessly toward the Bicloo stand. Hey we had 30 minutes surely thats enough to see Nantes???

We stood in front of the device haplessly pressing some buttons (the English button is particularly useful) shoved in my credit card (Why is it that everyone expects me to enter a PIN, but the machine never actually wants it???) to the machine and €2 later we were on our VERY HEAVY 3 speed bikes. While they could not possibly break time trial records they were easy to get going even up an over some bridges. In fact, we saw quite a few nice spots of Nantes. As you can see from our photos below.

The best thing, is that you can just drop it off and leave it. I reckon there is no better way around town. Can’t wait to try them in London, Paris, and Copenhagen. I hope it catches on in Melbourne and that perhaps we see more in Australia.

Noodles in Narita

Posted on by kymdt

Like Close Encounters of The Third Kind there has been one though that has dominated Helen since Australia.

Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!

Well we are in Narita. So where are the noodles?

20110703-075758.jpg

We could have got some at the Hotel Nikko, but no… We have to be authentic.

So it was on to the Shuttle Bus to the old town centre. We walked to the shrine and back, saw competing groups preparing for next weeks star festival. We looked for plastic noodles, we could have gone in to the Barge Inn (english pub) or the Jetlag Club (same time zone, thus no jet lag) or the friendly Japanese restaurant with Engrish menus.

But no…. We went for the upstairs smoky bar with no English menus. Somehow with a combination of very bad fooood japanese and bad English we muddle our way through. Had very nice soba, grilled pork, omlette and tempura. The complimentary fried tuna was scrumptious. Beer and plum wine the perfect accompainent.

So it’s good to be singular in your thought, sometimes!

Sydney Sunrise

Posted on by kymdt

It is a fine morning here in Sydney. The sunrise at the international airport was rewarding. But not as rewarding as an express path through immigration and the popcake automated pancake machine in the lounge.

I would add a photo of the popcakes, but they are all gone. Besides, my ipad has no camera!