Donald Noble’s Site

With the weather somewhat brighter than forecast this morning, I decided that I needed to get out in the hills. I had not planned anything, the higher tops are covered in deep snow, and a fresh dusting had fallen overnight with more forecast. Therefore I thought it wise to do something local and low.

I opted for two small hills at the southern end of Loch Duntelchaig — Tom Bailgeann and Creag nan Clag.

Tom Bailgeann

The hill has a radio mast at the top, and therefore a track leading up to it on the eastern side, which I followed. However this was pretty steep, and rather icy in places, which made for interesting walking. The track is not that prominent in places, so I ended up taking a bit of a detour, but after about 20 minutes walking I had reached the mast (464m). The views from the top were good, but not spectacular, although it offers an interesting perspective on Dores, the River Ness and Inverness, and south along Loch Ness.

Creag nan Clag

Having moved the car round to the cattle grid to the north of this hill, I followed the fenceline up through the woods, then broke southwards up the shoulder of the hill, keeping away from the conglomerate cliffs. A steep ascent through thick heather, before an easier walk across the plateau to a small cairn (407m). By this time the sun was blasting down on me, as I walked southwards. There were good views across a frozen Loch Ruthven and towards the upper end of Strath Nairn, made more beautiful by the bright winter sun on the fresh covering of snow.

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Total time taken: 1½ hours (~45 min ea.); Distance 4km; Height Climbed 380m; Photos Taken 25.

Photos on Flickr

I received an email from O2 the other day proclaiming the following “Unlimited Data means no limits“ and then in small print at the bottom, noting that an “Excessive use policy and terms apply” which I would argue, and I’m sure you will agree, is a limit.

Not quite sure who dreamed up that wonderful piece of advertising.

Since almost everyone is commenting on Apple’s new iPad — lauding it to be the next revolutionary device (well, since 3D Films, and Hi-Def TV, and the MacBook Air, and well, everything else…) I thought I would add my ha’penny worth¹.

From what I have seen and read, it looks very like a big iPod touch. It will inevitably do a lot more, but it runs (virtually) the same software, runs the same apps (plus a few more), and looks pretty similar. Apologies to Jonathan Ive for spoiling his beautiful designs with my mockup, but it had to be done.

Not convinced by the name either. It’s just like iPod… or maybe that is intentional. And I keep mistyping it as iPda — which I suppose it is too an extent.

I disagree with Mr Jobs that it fills a niche between a laptop and a smartphone. Perhaps if you have lots of disposable income, and don’t care about the environmental impact² of having another electronic gizmo, then it will do some things better than either. But most of the rest of us will make do with what we have. That said, if you have a basic phone and a desktop PC, then there is a much bigger gap between, which could (more) easily justify a device like this.

The other market I can see, as was pointed out by Chris Hall @ 148 apps, is people that don’t want or struggle to work a full computer. Apple products are generally known for “just working” and not needing to be changed, other than periodic software updates. While this is the bane of super-users, it makes things so much easier for those who don’t care about computers. Chris uses a good analogy — an automatic car is a tool to get from A to B, pressing one pedal to go and another to stop. This makes driving much easier, but is no good for the power user (rally driver) who want’s to tweak the last bit of performance out of their car. If one requires a general purpose computer, get a laptop or desktop. However, if all you want to do is browse the web a bit, send a few emails, enjoy pictures/video/music/simple games, then it is a pretty good device, and I’m sure Apple will sell a few.

Will I buy one? Almost certainly not. I have a smartphone, and need a more powerful general purpose computer to process images and have far too many files to fit on a 64BG SSD (my music OR photos would fill that completely).

However, I reserve final judgement until I have played with one in the Apple store. I just need to find an excuse to be in Glasgow in 60 days…

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¹ My thought’s on the mater are not worth 2¢, let alone 2 pence.

² Regardless of the environmental greenwash about it being “Arsenic, BFR, Mercury, & PVC free”, with a “recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure”, it still has a computer load of electronics inside which need to be produced and shipped round the world, not to mention powered during use.

I have managed to cobble together a couple of bookmarklets that might be of use to other people who use flickr. They provide one click links to get the html code to embed the small or medium sized images in another page or Flickr comment.

Drag the following links to your bookmarks toolbar flickr small or flickr medium. Please only use on photos where you have permission to link to the image; either your own, or those under a Creative Commons type licence. This may not work for you, I have only tested in Safari 4, or Flickr may change and break this at any point in the future.

For those who are interested, the javascript code is below, which was based upon code by Xenocryst @ Antares Scorpii in the Flickr API group and the Flickr Full-Size Bookmarklet.

javascript:void((function(){
var m=window.location.href.match(/^https?:\/\/[^/]*\bflickr\.com\/(photos\/[^/]+\/(\d+))/i);
if(m&&m.length&&m[2]) {
 fid=parseInt(page_p.server.substr(0,1))+1;
 prompt('Small image link for:"'+m[1]+'":',
 '<a href="http://www.flickr.com/'+m[1]+'" title="'+page_p.title+'">
 <img src="http://farm'+fid+'.static.flickr.com/
 '+page_p.server+'/'+page_p.id+'_'+page_p.secret+'_m.jpg"></a>')}
;})())

Minor update on 19 Jan, adding image tag which I missed out

Took advantage of the break in the weather today to get out on the hills. The original plan was to climb Beinn Liath Mhor a’Giubhasi Li to the south of Loch Glascarnoch, but as we headed across the Kessock Bridge the variable message sign warned the road was blocked past Garve. Quick change of plan saw us heading out of Inverness on the A9 in the other direction, towards Moy. We parked up at just off the A9, and walked up the road to Lynemore.

There the easy cleared path ended. We ploughed our way through the deep snow up the side of the Allt na Loinne Mór. It was hard going, with generally 0.3-0.6m depth of snow, and a bit more in some places, as Malcolm found out. As we climbed through the trees, occasionally finding the track we were supposed to be following, the snow was soft, and about 0.5m deep.

Once we got above about 500m, we saw that someone had been out in a Skidoo. Unfortunately, it had done a much better job than us of not sinking into the soft snow. Even where it had compressed the snow a bit, we were still sinking in a further 0.3m. Things got a bit easier as we climbed, as the wind had cleared the snow from the higher ground, although there were still patches of deep snow lurking.

Lunch was eaten in the bothy at the top, after clearing snow from the door to get in. At which point the weather cleared further, and we had some good views north to the Moray Firth — still shrouded in low cloud, as well as views of the hills to the east, and the Farr Windfarm to the south.

The way down was easier, but still took some effort, especially in the deeper snow lower down. Snow shoes would certainly have helped!

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Time taken: 3 hours (2 to summit); Distance 6km; Height Climbed 310m; Photos Taken 57.

Photos on Flickr