A Pipe and a Keyboard

One of the big problems I find about travelling abroad is navigation.

I am an avid map reader, and have no problem with actually finding a place, but when it comes to driving there, maps have serious shortcomings.   For a start, either the route has to be memorised or frequent stops are needed.  Also, the majority of maps that I carry tend to indicate a large town as a blob on the paper which isn’t much use.

Last year, I bought myself a SatNav – a Garmin Nuvi 760 – and this has become more than an essential part of my trips abroad.

Not only does it give extremely accurate information about where I am, such as what speed limit is currently in force, but is invaluable when looking for, say, fuel or an ATM.  Where it really comes into its own though is in direction finding from A to B.

There is an inherent problem though, as I usually know where A is, but programming B in can be problematic.  Suppose I want to visit a town some miles away?  I can type in the name of the town, but then the SatNav requires an address to go with it.  Usually it gives a list of streets that I can select, but for all I know, I have just set directions to the middle of a housing estate some distance from the town centre where I actually want to go.

I have developed a technique which I find extremely handy.

Suppose I want to spend a day wandering around a town some twenty miles away.  I have never been in that town before, so I have no idea of street names, or of one way streets.  The answer could not be more simple.

I go to Google Earth and look up the town.  I then zoom in looking for car parking.  Car parks are usually very easy to find on satellite images.  Having found the spot I am looking for, I read the Latitude and Longitude coordinates off Google Earth and feed them into the SatNav.  Simple.

I have done this for several towns now and the result is uncanny.  Not only does my SatNav give me directions to the town, but it navigates me safely through any one way streets and deposits me at the car park of my choice.

What more could anyone want? 

Filed under: Tech stuff on September 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »

Lately, I have been experiencing a very strange problem.

I can be quite fast on the keyboard, and I tend not to look at the screen while typing.  So I bang a couple of sentences into the comment fields of my site, and then look at the screen only to find my entire effort there only in reverse.

.sdrawkcab era noitautcnup gnidulcni ,sdrow eht llA

Just out of interest, I did a search on Google and found that I am not alone.

Various theories are put forward, with most suggesting a virus.  I can understand that as it is a typical manifestation of some of the older viruses (viri?).  No.  It’s not a virus.

Others have suggested an operation system, but it appears on several systems by all accounts.

Quite a few have suggested the keyboard which is obviously not the case.

The one common thread seems to be Firefox.

I have checked though quite a few inane suggestions, some misguided ones and quite a few who just suggest closing and reopening Firefox.  The only reply that seems to make any sense is that it’s a Java problem?

My Java is as up to date as it can be, so I am a tad suspicious of this, but it remains the only plausible explanation.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Filed under: Tech stuff on August 25th, 2009 | 7 Comments »

Some months ago, back in April I wrote about how I was going to try to improve this sites standing on the Internet.

Quite frankly, I haven’t had as much time to devote to this as I would have liked, so my efforts have been somewhat sporadic.

I had intended to do some subtle (and somewhat sneaky) advertising by posting on forums, using a link to this site in the footer of the posts, and to comment more on other people’s blogs.  That never happened.

I have posted slightly more frequently and that appears to be having an effect however.

My preoccupation with rankings , and Alexa rankings in particular arises from the fact that Alexa seems to be used as a yardstick by advertising companies.  I advertise on this site and on Head Rambles, and as this is now a major supplement to my income, any improvement is welcome.

Head Rambles has always done well in the rankings game.  It initially gained a Google ranking of 5, which is quite unusual for a blog of its type.  Normally “humorous” blogs seem to rank around the three mark, and when Google did an update about a year ago and Head Ramble’s rank dropped to 3 where I presume it belonged.  It has since climbed to 4, which is a bit of a puzzle

I  first started monitoring this site’s Alexa Ranking last April, when it had a ranking of 1,627,533 which is average for a nondescript site.  I have found that by posting infrequently but regularly, that figure has risen to 1,015,315 which is a considerable improvement.

The figure they use is a three month average, but according to their site, its one month average is 504,908 and a one week average is 627,962.  While the week average can be a normal blip, the one month figure is encouraging.  It appears that the figures will continue to improve.

So far the moral of the story seem to be that with a little patience and reasonably regular posting will improve ranks. 

I am a little baffled though as to how this site has a Google rank of 0?  !!

Filed under: Tech stuff on August 18th, 2009 | 4 Comments »