All posts by admin

Uncategorized

Cyber Gypsies Abound

2 Comments

We seem to be festooned with cyber gypsies.

In a British Heart Foundation shop in Streatham, Indra Sinha’s ‘frank account of love, life and travels on the electronic frontier’ found us as we walked past the front window.

I have gotten a third of the way through, but it’s like reading ancient history, and kind of sums up the way electronic communication has changed in the last few years.

I’ll talk more about it when I have finished it, but I get the feeling that it is a kind mirror image to the way I perceive the words ‘cyber gypsy’. For me the internet frees me up to see the wild blue planet earth, not so the vaults within.

But we’ll see. The book is wonderfully written, and draws you into its quite delicious labyrinths.

Uncategorized

The Train To Brighton

Leave a comment

I know my mood hasn’t been good concerning WiFi hotspots in London, considering our glorious capital can’t get it together to provide connectivity, gratis, for it’s citizens to lol about all chaise longue like, in it’s streets writing blogs like this (ie me).

I mean I can understand why. Imagine the glut of bohemians strewn about attempting to work, it would be pitiful. The sight of me strewn outside St Pauls writing an SEO proposal would sicken any banker I’m sure.

So. To escape from this madness I take myself on the road (or rail) to Brighton, and what do I find. WiFi access, free (for a limited period) from T Mobile on the train.

I’m writing this on the train (which is distracting me from working as it happens).

Viva la revolution.

The world IS my office (well, as well as being a dumping ground for humanities inability to govern it’s own greed that is).

We can share. The greedy and me.

Uncategorized

6 Quid

Leave a comment

Look, I hate to be so egocentric as to think that London is my virtual office – but it is – so if the powers that be would like to make it free for me to wield my Vaio about town like a cyber ninja I’d be a lot happier.

I have heard that it costs 6 quid to use an antenna, that some red nosed skinflint has attached to a coat hanger in Westminster, and uses the proceeds to pay for women to throw buns at him in some Streatham brothel. That seriously raises the cost of a coffee, and curtails my ability to pay for any confectionary to be thrown at me.

So stop it.

On a lighter note everywhere seems to be getting WiFi rapidly. I think Lhasa is rolling out an 8gig per second pan asian connection for switched on Yak herders.

Bitter. Moi ;0)

Cyber Gypsy Gear, Remote Working, Reviews

Sony VAIO

Leave a comment

I like my Sony VAIO. It has one of the best screens I have ever seen, and it is quieter than a cat stalking a bug on a rug. However, my battery has gone kaput after only one year and I’m not happy about it.

Not least because if I want to get another, it will cost me £139 for the almost useless standard battery, and £279 for the longer life battery that would count as standard on any other laptop (the screens on these things use so much power they sap the batteries, which is an OK trade for me as I want a good monitor on my laptop).

Originally I thought my laptop, which is a VGN FS215B, had daughter board problem as it didn’t register any battery at all. I posted a note on Sony’s award winning online help, and in a week got a message back saying if, after cleaning the battery terminals it still doesn’t work, I should buy another battery.

It took them a week to chew over THAT.

Great.

I have an old jalopy of a Eurocom that lasted three years without a hiccup before this. It may be true that the screen had the luminance of a muddy pond, and it made more noise than a politician, but it still works and lives to this day as my trusty gypsy back up.

At the first available opportunity I am going to check out Panasonic Toughbook technology. This Cyber Gypsy needs something that I can use in my cluttered old wagon, on the road, in the shower, whilst up mountain peak or in that white water raft.

My Sony is cute, but I think it might be a fireside option.

OK. If I am going to make this a review I had better review the damned thing.

Positives;

Great screen.
Quiet, I used to know my old laptop would not be stolen because I’d hear where it was at 50 miles, not this one.
Quite fast.
Look cute.

Negatives;

Seems like the batteries are useless and SONY are making a mint out of replacing them.
Looks cute, the girlfriend prefers checking her email out on this rather than her DELL.
Doesn’t feel solid, it has that ‘sell them pretty so that when they look worn they’ll come back for another’ quality about it.

If anyone has come looking for a review that includes information on how to overclock the damned thing, remember I’m a Cyber Gypsy, and am more interested in how I can run the thing on solar power.

And i’d like the battery to work.

POSTDATE….

This laptop broke not long after the warrenty date. I have a friend who works at Sony, he has a buddy in the parts department, he said DO NOT BUY SONY VAIO LAPTOPS, now that’s coming from the horses mouth.

What apparently happened to this one is the glue that holds the VGA chip to the mother board came unstuck so the screen stopped working. To buy another motherboard is more than a new laptop – I tried getting a second hand motherboard off of eBay but this didn’t work as there are so many different motherboards for the one model.

So do not buy a Sony Vaio, even at Sony they admit that Sony Vaio Laptops are Shit, they are designed to break shortly after the warrenty runs out – I own a Nissan, they are successful because they are well engineered and they last forever, why Sony has decided to go for the old American model of built in obsolescence I do not know, but as they seem to be making a good load of money they really do not seem to care.

Have I made myself clear, DO NOT BUY A SONY VAIO, of you want a SONY VAIO REVIEW then this is it here, the SONY VAIO REVIEW is that SONY VAIO LAPTOPS are a rip off.

There.

Travel Blog

Paris In The Rain

Leave a comment

I managed to get most of my daily chores out of the way as the rain pours down outside the Paris flat. I post to a few message boards about SEO and web design issues, and I am trying to get into the rythm of updating this blog daily. So here we are.

My train home is at 14.43 from the Gare De Nord so I want to get some work done before I go. I have an ecommerce store to quote for, which is for an American religious group. I seem to be getting a lot of requests from god fearing folk, which must reflect on my good Kharma so watch this space ;0)

I have also been reading up (Wikipedia etc) on people like the spiral tribe as they came up in conversation with a friend recently.

I worked with one of the founder members (Mark) just before the whole free dance scene kicked off. We worked on a small building site together, only for a short while, but he did make quite an impression because he came across as genuinely lovely.

Mark also seemed to exude an inner confidence that was infectious. I found myself quite jealous of it at the time because I was insecure and not ready to fight the system in the way he did. I spread my wings by travelling the globe for five years, and found my own way of coming to terms with existence later on.

I remember bumping into Mark at a later date when asked for me to donate a flotation tank, which I had bought to set up a business at the time, to one of the spiral tribes indoor events. I said no because I had invested £3000 in it and didn’t want it to be towed off by the police, which in hindsight had probably saved me a few quid, but had I done it it might have led to some great experiences. Having said that I wasn’t really too attracted to the scene chasing free parties through muddy fields, and never really believed that techno would unite us all.

Ecstasy, however, was a revolution in itself, causing people regard each other in an altogether loving way that was so different to the alcohol and whiz fueled punk generation. The kindness it fostered might have been drug fueled, but it changed a generation for the better, and now there is an undercurrent of love that will not go away. Having said that, changing the world comes in larger doses of self awareness. The disillusion caused when the party is over can be as harmful as it was good, so as in all things balance is needed.

I got the feeling that Mark was strong enough to ride the storms. If you get to read this mate (Network23 seem to have a Paris location), let’s meet up for a croissant and a chin wag.

It all is unfolding just as it should.

Right, back to cyber blogs.

I am going to pack up here and head off onto the streets for some 3d contact. The net does have its limitations, and I have done this gypsy’s work for the day.

Travel Blog

Paris

Leave a comment

It’s deserted here.

The French all go away on holiday for the month of August leaving a skeleton staff in Paris. It’s like some post apocalyptic movie where the streets are ours, tinned goods can be fetched at will from empty supermarkets. I was here only two weeks ago in the blistering heat, when the banks of the Canal St Martin were thick with people. Today we even managed to get into Antoine & Lili’s shop without a fight.

In between trips out I managed to get a little of my redesign done for my website templates store. I am making it a lot more web 2.0, but you’ll see. But all in all I am staying away from my vaio.

So that’s all for now…

Remote Working, Travel Blog

The Middle Of Nowhere

Leave a comment

Well not quite the middle of nowhere.

I am house sitting in a remote village on the welsh borders. Apparently it was one of the last valleys in the UK to have gotten electricity, but that was a while ago now.

The house I am in was wired up to broadband only last week. There was a connection for a year before that, but the neighbour had it, and he wasn’t sharing.

Continue reading The Middle Of Nowhere →