- Computers especially Clipper 5.3, Delphi, and Visual Basic 5 programming (don't find much time for this anymore....)
- Internet and Intranet
- Reading (Dennis Wheatley - 49 of his books, Douglas Reeman, Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes, Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean, The Hacker Crackdown, Nevil Shute, Lyall Watson - Supernature, David Bodanis - The Electric Universe & E=MC˛ Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie - 86 of her books)
- Communication and the technology that enables it.
- Quality and ISO9000 - See my Quality Of Service page
- Technology - I am a gadget
fanatic. I am very interested in the uses of Cellphone SMS and
Radio RDS for communicating information (traffic, weather, sport results,
etc) over cellular telephone networks and radio. All sort of gadgets
that plug into networks, GPS, GSM, etc. I have just (November 2004) acquired a
Garmin GPSMAP 60CS GPS
and this is one very hot gadget. It combines car, hiking, marine and
aviation functionality into one unit. If you thought GPS's were just for
finding direction think about these uses:
- Send someone a saved track and they can go over exactly the same route, eg. You could retrace an overseas tour including where the person walked around or find your way back on a hiking trail to your base camp. Also useful to play back your exact speed, location and time if you need to prove you were not speeding.
- GPS games - you stand in an open park and it has a vitual maze so you have to walk around as if you were walking between hedges, can't cheat as it traces your path on the screen as you move.
- Golf - determine distance and direction to hole even if you cannot see it (just need to save coorinates beforehand)
- Coach Tours - maximise time on walk abouts by saving location of coach and tracking "estimated time to arrival" which will take your walking speed and the distance into account to ensure you arrve back on time. Also useful fo quickly finding places of interest in an unknown city.
- Check whether delivery drivers stray from their routes or drive too fast.
- Sunrise & sunset times for wherever you are with phase of moon.
- Alerts to anchor drag if you are anchored in a boat. Use Trac-Back feature to trace exact path back to harbour if fog bound. Man-over-board feature will instantly plot position and navigate you back to that point. Also useful to find same fishing spot in the future, or exchange fishing spots with friends, or remember a spot to stop at on a return trip to take photographs.
- Proximity warning for rocks in water, speed traps, shallow water, etc.
- Flight - rate of ascent or descent, find an airport, navigate to airport, altitude.
- Altitude, weather forecast using its barometer (those GPS's that have it at least).
- Geocaching - sport in which you use your GPS to find hidden caches
- Parachute function that monitors all sorts of variables and advises when to deploy chute.
- ETA function (Estimated Time of Arrival) - I regularly use this to time my speed to arrive at destination for business meetings or to catch a flight.
Harley-Davidson
Motorcycles - I have a 2006 Dyna Streetbob- Security, Law Enforcement
- British Comedy - Mr. Bean, Only Fools and Horses, The Thin Blue Line, Waiting for God, Monty Python, Yes Minister, House of Cards, Men Behaving Badly, Brittas Empire, etc.
-
Digital Video and Digital Photography - I use a JVC GR-DX25EK digital video camera and a Canon Powershot S2 IS still camera with a 52mm Lensmate adaptor with Hoya UV and Circular Polazing filters. I print to a Samsung CLP-500 colour laser and my photos go to a Canon Pixma ip4000 printer. Scanning of photos, slides and negatives are done on a Canon Canoscan 4200F scanner. I edit the footage and write it to DVD's using a LG DR4812W DVD Recorder.
- See my online photo album at Flickr.
www.flickr.com
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- Useful Flickr Utilities:
- Flickr Uploadr - allows you
to publish a batch of photos into Flickr directly from your computer.
Once you install the Uploadr, just drag and drop in your photos, add
some tags, and you're done! I really like the auto resize function.
- Flickr Leech - use
it to display most popular photos, or photos from a particular user or
set, etc.
- FlickrFly - a
script that can be linked from the description or comment of a geotagged
Flickr Photo to fly you that location in Google Earth. To input the
geotags to your photos, use GETrackr
from within Google Earth. See some of my photos that have been
enabled on my
Flickr site.
- Flickr Uploadr - allows you
to publish a batch of photos into Flickr directly from your computer.
Once you install the Uploadr, just drag and drop in your photos, add
some tags, and you're done! I really like the auto resize function.
- Logitech Harmony 688 Remote controller. It programs itself via the Internet and really can replace all your old remotes (without having to keep switching between modes)
- Multi-Function Digital Viewer - a digital photo frame that allows you to load 100's of photo's, video clips, and sound from USB (memory sticks or PC) or camera memory cards. It then displays the photos as a still or a slideshow. Apart from its family use, it can also serve as a compact business slide show viewer (also displays out through AV to a TV or projector if you find the 14cm screen too small.
- Skype Dualphone - a DECT cordless phone that connects to your Telco as well as to Skype on your PC via USB. Makes Skype calling as easy as using a normal telephone as you never need to touch the PC to make or receive calls.
- My PC is a Soltek SL-86SPE-L overclocking motherboard with an Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz Hyper Threading CPU with 512MB of dual-channel DDR400 RAM. Storage is Seagate 20GB and Seagate 160GB on board and Western Digital 200GB remote backup drive. The PC is housed in a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream VA3400SWA aluminium case with Thermaltake 400W Purepower power supply.
Any links or opinions expressed on this page in no way reflect any opinions of my employer. This page is entirely private.