Adrian's random thoughts

Monday's commute was miserable: more Boris bike woes

2011-01-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Monday's commute was miserable. In fact, most days are but Monday was particularly bad.

Not content with the fact that my train was 25 minutes late into Paddington (in other words it took twice as long as it should have done; due to '"congestion between Reading and London" - I have never understood how trains get stuck in "traffic", it's not as if you didn't know when to expect them!), I decided to continue on my journey to get fit and go green, and cycle from Paddington to work.

In doing so, I have decided that the Boris bike scheme is utterly, utterly useless. You may have seen my earlier blog post about it. I thought it a waste of time then but not being one to give up first time around, I decided to try again.

First, there are no Boris bikes at Paddington station. A major railway terminus, gateway to the West of England and Wales, connection with the country's busiest airport via the Heathrow Express...? You would have thought this was a prime location for people wanting bikes...? Apparently not. Anyway, I consulted my Boris bike app on the iPhone and went in search of bikes in Winsland Street. None left, although there were only 12 bays in the first place. Okay, onto South Wharf Street. None there either and now even further from the direction I needed to be in. Right. I walk 10 minutes to Southwick Street. Success, 5 bikes free. I eagerly inserted my key fob and waited for the green light. And waited. It flashed amber and then stopped. I tried again. Same thing. I tried another bike. Same again! Hopeless.

Something was clearly wrong. I stood in the street and tried to log on to their website. No data signal on my phone. I tried calling them. There was hardly any voice signal either (come on O2, I was in the middle of the capital for goodness sake). So with the fear of being disconnected at any second and after having negotiated several menu options I get through to... Yes, you've guessed it, a queue. "Due to heavy call volumes, we are currently very busy and will answer your call..." I waited and waited. At risk of losing what signal I had, I began to walk in the loose direction of work. After all, it was now 09:30 and I had left home just after eight.

I gave up on the iPhone app, having realised that it had stopped updating the availability of bikes at 09:05. I hoped I would come across either another row of Boris bikes or a tube station. I walked down Connaught Street and was nearly run over by a big black Range Rover and two Police motorcyclists: Tony Blair was on the move.

At Portman Square I realised I'd missed Marble Arch tube and headed towards Bond Street. "Oh joy!" I exclaimed (well, muttered under my breath really) - Boris bikes and lots of them. One final go, I thought to myself. And low and behold, it worked, the light went green and the bike was mine. Hurray. Off I pedalled.

Now Oxford Street is not exactly bike friendly. Having avoided the many buses which seem to pull out whenever they choose, I then get stuck behind them every 50 metres or so at the many red lights. Finally, there is the abyss of the Cross-rail works at Tottenham Court Road to negotiate.

Finally, I race down Kingsway, almost at work. Pulling into Portugal Street, I had hoped to drop the bike outside LSE's New Academic Building (I'm not sure what they will call the next new building... the "New New..."?). "Here we go again" I thought; all the bays were full. I cycled down the back of the LSE Library - full. Houghton Street - full. Where to next, I pondered? Off down past the law courts and finally a free bay but only because the Boris bike boys were out with their little electric thingy, loading some of the bikes up to move elsewhere. I docked the bike and walked back to work. Journey time to work was 2 hours, 5 minutes. Grrr.

You would think it got better this evening. I left the office just before 7 hoping to make a 7.30 train. Call me a mug (it wouldn't have been the first time) but I decided to cycle again. I mean, it couldn't have been any worse could it...?

Undeterred by the lack of a Boris bike in Houghton Street and at the corner of Aldwych, there were plenty at Convent Garden. I picked one up without issue and pedalled off into the night.

In the Mall I passed a load of flashing blue lights: two Police cars and an ambulance. Sandwiched in the middle was a little red Ford Festa. Then I spotted it, just a glimmer of metal reflected in the dim blue light - the mangled wreckage of a cycle. Oh dear and no sign of the cyclist. I hoped this wasn't a bad omen. I pedalled on.

Boris bikes are far from light and in suit and tie with bag strung over my shoulder, I found the accent up Constitution Hill hard going. The flashing front light offered little by way of illumination as I battled my way through the darkness of Hyde Park. Finally, I emerged out into the relative comfort of street-lit Albion Street and, avoiding a car attempting a multi-point turn in the most ridiculous of places, traced my way back along the route from the morning.

I decided to play safe and drop the bike at Southwick Street, where I had fumed only ten hours earlier. Except I couldnt. The bays were all full. This had bode well. I was 10 minutes walk from Paddington so assumed it would get worse. It did. All the bays in the vicinity were full and I wasn't the only "Boris biker" looking for a bay either. I have identified the fundamental flaw in the scheme: bikes clearly travel in the direction of the commuter and with the limited number of bays near a major commuter-hub, the scheme simply can't cope. I consulted the map in South Wharf Street and found another bike park further up the canal. Finding it proved almost impossible. I navigated around countless one-way systems, building sites, temporary roads and eventually found the bike park and a free bay. And then the walk back to Paddington Station. Despite a new and helpful bridge across the canal, I still had to retrace my steps down London Street, walking parallel to the track, right back to the main entrance of the station. The result: I'd long ago missed the 7.30, got there just as the 7.45 was pulling out, and raced to get on the 7.48. Unusually, I did get a seat, sinking my sweaty body into the back rest, iPhone in hand, writing this, when I heard over the PA "I am sorry but we are awaiting the driver on a late-running in bound service and will be late leaving this evening..." Typical.

I got home at 8.50, too late for the gym. I have got to find a better way. Perhaps I should try motorbiking again. At least I would be in control. Although you now have to pay for parking in Westminster. If I could afford to I would sit in my the sumptuous leather of my Jag, only there would be nowhere to park.

Oh well, what will Tuesday bring?

Isolated - 3 days with no phone nor Internet connection

2011-01-22T06:15:00.000-08:00

I breathe a huge sigh of relief as I fire up Safari and see a Google search page appear. My Internet connection is working again. Life continues.

Last Saturday I went to make a phone call using my landline - something I only do at the weekends because I get free calls then. I use my mobile at all other times as I have so many inclusive minutes in my tariff that it would seem silly not too. Except of course when I can't but more on that in a minute. Anyway, back to making this phone call... The line was dead. Nyet. Nada. Now I have one of those fancy Bang and Olufsen cordless phones (a gift from my sister I hasten to add). I assumed it must be that the clever phone wasn't working, so went in search of my trustee old "plug the wire in and lift the handset" kind of phone. Nope, that didn't work either. Hmm. I tried all the sockets in the house. All dead. But my Internet connection was still okay - I have broadband supplied by O2 but dependent on my BT landline of course. I rang my father, as I usually do when i have problems of a technical or electrical nature. He'd know what to do. His suggestion was that I try unplugging everything and starting again, in case one device was causing a problem. That sounded perfectly sensible and was precisely what I did. Of course this was the point at which my Internet connection went the same way as the dial tone. Dead. Oh dear. Now I had nothing. By this time, I was running late for an appointment and had to head off out. As I emerged from my side street I became accutely aware of a number of BT Openreach vans parked up on the side of the road with men working at one of the those green boxes (look here if you ever wondered what they were for). Coincidence? I doubted it but hoped that whatever the problem, they would soon have it fixed.

When I returned later that evening there was still no phone and still no Internet. The first place I turn to for help (and I suspect a lot of you do too) is the web: usually Google. Life with no Internet was going to be tough. Of course the more astute of you (and those who know me) would have commented "but what about your iPhone or you iPad... can't you use those?" The iPad is wifi only - I couldn't justify the extra expense of a 3G enabled one and then there is the whole issue of a mobile data tariff. And the iPhone? Something happened back in September whereby the O2 signal strength in my area of Reading plummeted from 4-5 bars to often only one. 3G is similarly noticeable by its absence. In fact I frequently drop calls made from home on my iPhone. I'll leave it to you to ponder whether it's the phone or network. Either way, it's not that useful. In fact, it was the whole reason for getting one of these free-call packages from BT. (Oh, by the way there is a sting in that tail... I received my phone bill the other month having used my landline to make a couple of local calls outside of my "free time" and was charged at more than £0.20 per minute!)

So, no phone, no Internet. I rang BT. Or a tried. You can't ring a free-phone 0800 number from a mobile, or at least not for free. O2 told me to drop the initial 0 and dial again, pointing out that I would be billed for the call at my standard rate. BT then suggested (having apparently noticed that I was calling from a mobile) that I should redial using an 030 number. Why didn't they print that in the back of the BT bill too? Having pressed 1, 1, 2, 1, (or some other combination) plus entering my home number and my mobile number, I eventually get to "speak" to a machine. The machine tells me it was going to check my line and I shouldn't hang up. Okay, I don't. But I did have to listen to recorded messages telling how much I can do via the Internet. Except I couldn't of course - I didn't have a phone line! Finally, the machine concluded that I did have a fault "somewhere between the Exchange and my property" which would require an engineer to sort out and would take 3 working days to fix. I opted to receive updates by SMS and wondered how I would cope for a full four more days without the Net (Sunday not being counted as a working day). My iPhone chimed (text messages seem to come through okay) and the text from BT said that my fault would be fixed in 10 days and not in the initial three!! Now I began to panic. I opened a bottle of wine and sat down in front of the TV.

I've not been viewing much broadcast TV. There never seems to be much on. Or at least not after the News at Ten, when I finally get in from work and the gym. I'd become accustomed to BBC iPlayer/ITV Player on the PS3 and to downloading/renting content on the Apple TV. Neither of these now worked, of course. In fact, I became accutely aware of just how much I depended on the Internet. No access to the Remote Desktop at work (and I've been trying lately to reduce the amount of stuff I print out so it's all online only). No online banking. No chatting to friends on MSN/Skype. No looking up those random thoughts on Wikipedia. Life seemed suddenly very dull without the Net. I got up and raided the DVD drawer instead. Fortunately, I had a collection of BlueRays given to me for Christmas that I'd not yet watched.

Sunday was a day spent on my motorbike. I coach bikers to help them pass their advanced bike test via the Thames Vale Advanced Motorcyclists - one of the biggest bike clubs in the country. Needless to say it rained later in the day and I got drenched. On Monday I was back at work and fully connected again. The iPhone and iPad apps were duly updated, Twitter feeds refreshed and life returned to its normal digital self. I was out Monday and on Tuesday received a wonderful text message from BT - all had been fixed, apparently.

I raced home after work with the expectation of being connected to the outside world again. And sure enough, I had a dial tone. I rebooted routers, wireless hubs, plugged back in clever phones and restarted Apple TV, PS3, laptop and all the other connected devices. Did it work? No!!! Bizarrely, and I've still not worked out why, only the left hand phone socket of the double-sockets I have in each room now works. I swapped the socket that my ADSL router plugs into and it all came back to life. On the basis that it all now works, I've decided to leave well alone. I don't need that many phone sockets anyway!

Walk, don't cycle - it's quicker! (My first time using a Boris bike)

2011-01-12T01:43:00.000-08:00

So last night I thought I'd finally try a Boris bike. Actually, I had tried to use one before but my membership had not registered properly as the day after I got my new 'fob' the light wouldn't 'go green' and release the bike. I forgot about it with the bad weather before Christams and remained a 'Boris virgin' until now.

It was only supposed to be a short ride. No seriously, I just wanted to get from the LSE in Houghton Street to Waterloo station. I normally walk and it takes about 15 minutes. Last night I thought I would save a bit of time and take a bike. My key fob worked flawlessly this time and the Boris bike was mine. I strapped my bag to the front (note to self: Gucci may not be the ideal biking bag... especially with a bottle of wine in it!), raised the saddle (I'm a lanky lad), and set off.

The ride across the bridge was uneventful and I arrived outside Waterloo station a few minutes later. Terrific. Now where to leave the bike? I soon found the row upon row of Boris bikes outside the station approach. But not a single docking station free. No problem, I thought... ride around and find another. Surely, there must be loads of docking points in the vicinity of a major railway hub? I soon found one south of the station, just off Baylis Road. But they were all full too. So I went to the docking station, inserted my fob and secured my additional 15 minutes of free riding time. Looking at the map nearby showed there was another docking point back up the way I had come in Stamford Street. Off I pedalled.

Of course, I hadn't realised that Stamford Street was closed to traffic eastbound, so a bit of walking and some pavement pedalling (I know, I'm sorry, but by this time I was more than a little frustrated) led me to the next Boris bike park; which was also full! To quote a certain grumpy old man... 'I don't believe it!'

Finally, I find a single spare slot at a bike park down the back of Meymott Street. I park up, leave the dreaded Boris bike behind and walk to Southwark station where I continued by journey by tube.

So my "quick ride" actually took me 40 minutes, 25 minutes longer than had I just walked to Waterloo.

The moral? Walk don't cycle. It's quicker! (At least on a Boris bike)

A thought on computer control...

2010-11-30T02:11:00.000-08:00

Last week I was invited to speak, along with a colleague, at an UCISA event in Huddersfield on the LSE's trials and tribulations of a rapid roll-out of Windows 7 and Office 2010 to our 1000 plus student and teaching room PCs. If you're interested, you can see our presentation here.

But that is not my reason for writing. It was while I was on the train from Kings Cross that I downloaded the new Wired Magazine app for the iPad. As electronic magazines go, this surely sets the gold standard: a beautiful interface, a clear and elegant design - akin to the paper based magazine - that the iPad renders superbly. The best bit, however, is all the 'secret' mulit-media content accessed by rotating the iPad or tapping on the various icons. This month I was able to explore the film sets of Aardman, creators of that dynamic plasticine duo Wallace and Gromit, in glorious 360-degree panoramas.

But even that is not the reason for my post today. No, it was an article in Wired on a new way of interacting with computers that caught my attention. A San Francisco based company called Emotiv has designed a way to literally control a PC by thought! Now part of me gets a little (or even a lot!) worried by that. The other part thinks Wow! this must be the future of computer interaction. The device uses 'neuro-signal acquisition' - a set of sensors to tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expressions and then connects wirelessly to most PCs. Their website suggests that the technology can be used to translate one's thoughts and emotions into art and music, to add a whole new dimension to playing games, and to get true insight into the effectiveness of marketing and advertising. There is of course, one other dimension where Emotiv should be able to help - in creating life-changing applications for the disabled. That could be a "thought keyboard" or innovative ways to control peripherals or even wheelchairs! And this is something that AACT4Children, the charity I am a Trustee of, should think about getting into.

So you would expect the Emotiv EPOC (their headset product) to be hugely expensive. Because it is still in development and requires other developers to work with it, they are selling this incredible technology for just $299! The downside - it seems to be only available in the US. Otherwise I think I would have placed my order today! I think this kind of technology, along with the camera/sensor/action recognition systems being developed by the Gaming industry (see Microsoft's new Kinect and of course the Wii), is the future. The days of the mouse and keyboard are clearly numbered.

Steve Ballmer on the Cloud, Xbox Kinetic, and the demise of Microsoft(!) at LSE

2010-10-05T03:16:00.001-07:00

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, came to give a talk at the LSEthis morning. Nothing that unusual about that, perhaps, from the institution whose public events programme have included Bill Gates senior, Nelson Mandella, Bill Clinton and a host of other heads of state and global figures. Slightly unusual was that the ticketed (but free) event was hugely oversubscribed. Even more unusual was that it started at 8.30am in the morning, with students and others (myself included) queuing for ‘returns’ well before 8.00am. And I don’t think it was just the offer of LSE free coffee that drew them in (no, I know that’s not the case.. have you ever tried LSE coffee?!). Alas, I didn’t get to see Steve in person. I was herded into an adjacent lecture theatre and watched him via a video link.

So what did Steve talk about? Well, his presentation was entitled"Seizing the Opportunity of the Cloud: the Next Wave of Business Growth." But what did he really say? In truth, not a lot. He only spoke for 35 minutes and he was light on content. The slides sucked (though that might just be their rendition via the video link). Having talked about the evolution of IT, he tried to describe the “Cloud” and failed, though he did manage to plug Microsoft’s Azure. Then he moved onto Microsoft’s soon to be launched (next month in the UK no less) Xbox Kinetic. A short video clip showed kids enjoying the “full body experience” but I just got the feeling that it’s yet another Microsoft remake of someone else’s innovation (in this case the Wii). I don’t really see anything original coming out of Redmond.

But Steve was much more animated than I expected and he really opened up with the 30 minutes of Q and A towards the end. There were, of course, the usual media questions: Microsoft’s position, its competitors etc. More interesting were the questions that Steve didn’t answer. One was a question on Stuxnet, a Windows-specific worm described byKaspersky Labs as "a working and fearsome prototype of a cyber-weapon that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world” from a journalist (Grant Somebody who couldn’t even get his publication right.. was he from Computing or Computer Weekly? An easy mistake… didn’t the editor of one become the editor of the other just recently…?!). It really sounded like Steve hadn’t heard of Stuxnet at all. The other on the impact of Google’s ChromeOS. “Sorry,” said Steve, “I didn’t quite catch that.” The audience laughed but after repeating the question three times and commenting on the acoustics, I really don’t think he heard the question at all. He certainly chose to avoid an answer.

What got him animated most? He was asked what his favourite Xbox game was. “Beach Volleyball, Baby!" he yells. "My kids would tell you that's a lot of air under your feet, daddy!" He wasn’t going to be drawn on losses in the Cloud, Windows 8, iPads and those “competitor phones” and retorted that Microsoft must be doing something right, “we made 26billion dollars, with only one company doing better…”

There were some good questions on patent law and the impact of piracy in China. But it was the final question that stole the show. Asked by an LSE student, “what would bring about the demise of Microsoft?” Apparently, the direct actions of Microsoft itself. Let’s hope that Xbox Kinetic lives up to Steve’s expectations and the quiet pulling of their last big launch (anyone remember the Kin…?!) isn’t anything to go by. Now all we need is Steve Jobs at the LSE (LSE Public Events are you reading this…?)

IT in Schools

2010-08-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine posted a link to an article in the Guardian today that might be of interest to those of us running ICT in education: http://trunc.it/a9rn2

Oh and in case you wondered...

2010-08-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

The finger's almost healed. It took weeks of being strapped, followed by weeks of physio. It's a bit bigger than it was and I can't straighten it fully but I can almost make a fist and can both type and ride my motorbike again :)

Here's a pic taken with (yep, you guessed it - the new iPhone!)...

Things I like about my new iPhone4...

2010-08-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

I love the screen definition or "Retina display" as Apple call it (though I didn't think the old one was bad until I saw the new one!)
I love the unified inbox - at last I might be able to manage the onslaught of five separate mail accounts!
I love the speed - compared to my old 3G, this thing is on rocket-powered skates. Even Navigon opens quickly!
I like the new camera, although not experimented with video just yet.

Things I'm still getting used to...

It's shape... I need a new case (any recommendations out there...?)
Multi-tasking. I can see the benefit but haven't got used to it yet. By the way... is there a way to close apps once you've opened them? The list of apps I can switch to seems to grow and grow.

And while I'm on the subject of technology i liked...

I played with a friend of mine's all in one PC with a touch screen display running Windows 7. I kinda liked it. Maybe the novelty will wear off, but for now I think it's worth looking at and I'm sure it might have a part to play in providing more accessible IT.

Just one finger counts!

2010-04-28T01:51:00.000-07:00

Never mind all this new technology... I hadn't realised until this week just how important a finger could be...!

I was up in Edinburgh last week completing the last week of the Leadership Foundation's Top Management Programme (an excellent course). As I was about to enter my hotel on Friday night, I slipped on a metal grate in the road and fell "A over H" (it had been raining and the thing was like sheet ice). Of course I had lots of luggage which didn't exactly help. The Concierge ran out to help me and I soon stood up. I guess I was in a little shock and the adrenaline was pumping as nothing appeared to hurt... until I looked at my right hand... and saw something rather unpleasant. My middle finger was bent back on itself forming a sort of dog-leg. Then the pain started! I was helped into the hotel reception (thank you to the staff at The Glasshouse - and I can thoroughly recommend a stay) where an ice bucket was promptly fetched.

A taxi ride to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary later and I was in the safe hands of the hospital staff. I have to say I was very impressed with the ERI... I was seen almost immediately, X-rayed within 10 minutes, treated, X-rayed again and out in a little over an hour! The diagnosis - a dislocated finger. You can see for yourself. It took two people a good deal of tugging at my arm and finger to get it back in place. Thank goodness for the anaesthetic!

So back in Reading on Monday, I soon realised just how necessary this particular digit really is. Writing is very difficult. Typing is possible, albeit slowly (it harks back to when I first started using a keyboard with two fingers). Actually, using the virtual key pad on my iPhone is easier and quicker than the keyboard on my PC where I'm writing this now. The real challenges are shirt buttons, cuff links and neck ties.

I had to visit my local hospital for an orthopedic referral and they've now referred me for physiotherapy. Apparently, it will take 4-5 weeks to heal. And riding my motorbike is out of the question :( Hmmm.

The power of mobile devices...

2010-03-31T03:59:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that I've not really posted much on my blog, so here comes some more...

I was looking through my usual RSS feeds and came across a feature on Engadget (for those of you not familiar with Engadget it's a great way to see what's happening in the world of technology). Anyway, the article (click here) describes how Looktel have developed some software that literally performs "artificial vision." Running on a Windows mobile SmartPhone, the software uses the on board camera to recognize objects and text. There is a YouTube demo on their website (here)that shows just how powerful this stuff is... it will recognize groceries, shops, read newspaper and magazine articles and read these aloud... amazing. Designed to help those who are visually impaired, this is just the sort of thing the Charity I'm a Trustee of should be looking into...

Second post

2010-03-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded the customary photograph (and I'm very grateful to my friend and photographer, Nigel Bruce, for doing the honours) and added a a few more details about me.

I'll add a few more here too...

Last week, I attended the thought provoking and very interesting UCISA Annual Management conference in Harrogate, where I was promptly elected to the Executive Committee as chair of the Infrastructure Group. For those of you who don't know about UCISA, it's a body that represents the Information Services needs of universities and colleges in the UK. You can find out more here.

My First Post

2010-03-16T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been meaning to set up a blog for what seems like an eon now. At last I've got as far as my first post. I hope this will be the beginning of something useful. Useful to me (so I can record my mindless blather in one place. And maybe useful to others, should my blatherings prove to have some relevance after all! So, I'll post this for now and go an hunt down a photo so you can see who I am. Then I'll try and add a little more detail of things that I'm interested in and, most important of all, I shall try and keep this up to date!