Australia February-March 2010

This blog entry attempts to provide an explanation for the pictures of our holiday on this page referring off to various videos along the way. Please feel free to browse this page  in a separate instance or tab of your browser and refer back to this post for some explanations. Also if you hover your mouse over each link you should get a preview of each picture.

here is

This is the lady of the house sitting in ‘Mrs Mcquarry’s, seat’ where the NSW governor’s wife where used to look out to the harbour to enjoy the view. 

 This is the view from the office where I used to work 40 years ago when as an economist and student I worked on an exchage scolarship . We wandered up to 60 Martin place and chatted up the reception about my experiences of 40 years ago and much to my surprise we were ushered up to the 28th floor to enjoy the view again.

See also IMG_4009  through IMG_4021 for the shots taken from here … yes this was the view from where I took coffee after lunch some 40 years ago ! …… Shame about the weather …

Still wet while we went for a wander in the Rocks ( IMG_4026 ) which is the Victorian commercial centre and one of the dock areas in Sydney. IMG_4030 to IMG_4050 … Selfexplanatory … Then we were off to Neutral Bay on the ferry to see where I stayed 40 years ago ( IMG_4052 through IMG_4076 ) .. Same views ( rather magnificent ) and the same feeling about the place but I just don’t remember any rain ?! 

also in video ….. 

( if you have difficulty making the videos work from here, double click the video and run it natively from utube stoping the video on the blog here to make the native utube video work better )

 ….. Next day we were off on the Bondi explorer bus to … Er Bondi beach …

( IMG_4086 through to here IMG_4100 ) Famous for the ‘scenery’ …. Via Double Bay and Rose Bay with the smashing semillon and fish chips and view at Watson Bay

here  and here , a quick stroll over the southern Heads and hop back on the bus to Bondi …

After our trip on Neutral Bay where I stayed some 40 years ago when I was a student over here

we took a nice walk round the opera house and saw it properly, in the sun….

This is our trip on the Bondi explorer round the north shores and up to Bondi beach via Doyles at Watson Bay where we had excellent fish and chips with a nice Chardonay.

Then we were off to Hamilton Island on the Whitsunday Islands

This is some video of the ‘long pavilion’ of the Qualia resort and from the varander of our pavilion.

This is some video from elsewhere at the resort ..

This is a view of the Whitsunday Island from the air !  Quick helicopter ride … Gill wasn’t quite sure how she was going to take it .. but the guide/pilot was superbe and put her at ease beautifully ..

Next up .. our day in Perth Friday 12th March where Matthew and Nicky are living ..

Saturday we drove to Margaret River to stay at Gnurabub beach, site of some of the best surf in WA and 15% of Australia’s premium wine production. Here are some views of the beach scenery:-

On Monday we investigated the wine country with the help of Conor Lagan who ran www.xanaduwines.com/ a winemaker of great experience in the are see a road less travelled  

On the way back we looked at the surf competition taking place at the next beach ..

And watched certain divers at Busselton Jetty ..

Much much more to come ….maybe …

gotta fly …. !!

..

Malta 2009

Hello all .. apologies for not communicating very prolifically over the last year unlike certain a other blogger I can think of …. http://www.gorgeoux.com/ ….

anyway we have been on holiday in the above mentioned place and had an interesting time really …

however ..

. This is a 4 star hotel in which the coffee has to be argued for each morning …. I find that a bit difficile 1st thing (before a coffee …) The manager this morning was somewhat rude as well which didn’t really help me or him after we had finished our ‘conversation’ I apologised afterwards and we are the best of mates now ….after all he is the guy who makes the coffee you see …

… Had quite an epic sail yesterday … The forcast had been for 18 mph wind which would have been quite nice , I texted the sailing school owner thinking that he wouldn’t be about on sunday (strictly catholic country ) and as his yacht had moved from the mooring, but got a reply about 12.45 saying he was about, followed by a call and met him 2.30 and went out. Its been really nice being able to sea sail in the waves and know there’s a safety system in place in case something goes wrong … about 15 years actually since I have done any sea sailing … anyway the sky clouded over and the wind got up and the forecasted wind came in and it was great .. Then the tiller (rudder holder) broke while I was about a mile out so had to struggle in and get to the outskirts of the harbour waving the broken tiller in front of the harbour so he would notice, which he did and zoomed out in his outboard motor and rubber duck and lashed a new one for me and off I went for some more fun.

The problem happened when I was being towed in (!!) .. Had the ropes a bit tight and got my foot stuck under one and over I went !! … Then found I couldn’t right it so Paul Debono http://www.fairwindsailing.com.mt   dived in and rescued me !! … All watched by Gill from the hotel window !!! …good sport and good spectator sport as well  .. Gill says she’s not letting me sail again til I lose a bit of weight ..

Anyway a felt quite exercised yesterday and needless to say slept rather well afterwards !! …. All excellent and such a good reason to stay in Malta and in a somewhat less than 4 star hotel .. The staff are quite nice really and are really one’s friends .. But the operations manager is very rude (and still unrepentant ) he offered to take us to another hotel after we complained about the room on the 1st day (next to the lift and 1st floor over the hotel entrance …. ) .. We fixed it next day through the agent though and ended up on the 5th floor.

So .. Its been good .. Weather, restaurants and sailing that is (hotel .. no further comment) .. it’ll be good to be back … And to see you all soon ..

So about the pictures , the collection is here and will write an explanation soon ..

however … until i get organised have a look at this picture    ( zoom your browser to read the text , to zoom go to the bottom right hand corner and click the + sign …  not sure about apple macs sorry   )  ….

Ok so here are some of the nicer pictures .. this was our favourite pizza place … thin crust and with the ancient busses chugging round the bay … the view from the ferry on the way to Gozo …. this and this and this was the church built by the villagers between 1950 and 1971 …. We visited the Ggantija Temples which are a world heritage site and represent the oldest freestanding manmade structure in the world ? see here and here and here . We visited the ‘citadel’ in Victoria , the centre of Gozo and admired the views from the top  and here and here  . The rest of the pictures are various shots around St Juliens. This is a shot of some fossils embedded on the Limestone on the shore at Sliema . Without doubt the best pizzas and views were from this place in Spinola Bay

We also visited in September when Gill had a private tour of some of the nicer parts of Malta.

This was St Paul’s Church in Malta which was the actual site of St Pauls incarceration in Malta after the shipwreck see here and here  ..

… we were treated to a guided tour of Ndina the ancient city of Malta with its beautiful Cathedral in which our guide was married see here    here  ( the amazing marble floor … ) and here  do browse the pictures from here  . There was a trip round Valletta by horse and trap  with a visit to the other Cathedral there replete with many Caravaggio paintings therin (no photography) all in here

Here is a nice sailing video .. “footage of extreme sailing”

 

Here is my favourite Laser sailing video …

“When we went out sailing it was 25 knots, with big waves. However, after half an hour the wind increased to over 35 knots, wtih gusts over 40. We were quite far upwind by this time, and the video shows our mad dash back to the safety of the SailBase.
www.sailcoach.com“

Richard

Norway 2008

Hello

We have just returned from a 10 day trip to Norway. We flew to Bergen airport and stayed in studio flat in Bryggen in that town. We then spent a day or two exploring Bergen. Beautifully crafted Cast Iron Manhole Covers everywhere.  Strange Sense of humour in the Fish Market, Time for a beer, Just up the Street from where we stayed, on the way to the Fjords, here, here, and through to here … IMG_2764.htm , This is the uphill railway that took us down to the Myrdal, then we traveled to Flam and a trip up the fjords IMG_2783.htm through to IMG_2860.htm , all pretty spectacular. We then travelled by expressboat to Solstrand to have a day in a Spa (Bad) , and we were off …. not quite sure why this was buried in the rocks , Our guide was studying at a Music school near the Bad, nice shots on the way /IMG_2927.htm through to /IMG_2978.htm  , and we arrive, and here , and here, and through to IMG_3005.htm ,  excellent infinity pool (yes this is it !)  , and here , and the spa area through to /IMG_3017.htm .

This is up in the woods above Bergen, and here (bless …) , and another view from the top , Bryggen is round to the far right of this picture , beautiful cobble streets everywhere in Bergen, and how can He ride this bike over the cobbles !? (I think he gave up …in the Bryggen ) ….. 

Then we were in Oslo … big disappointment as the railway from Bergen to Oslo was closed because of a landslide, with a choice of 12 hours on a bus an arriving very late or a 1 hour flight …. the bus trip was to have been really spectacular, over the mountains where there were no roads, a great pity. …. anyway …

Then we were in Oslo  … and to see an eclipse in Vigeland Sculpture Park , right next to Nicky and Matthew’s flat ! Fantastic ..

The Monolith (oh and an Eclipse) .. IMG_3086.htm through toIMG_3134.htm ,

The Fountain , and here , and here,

Oslo and the Contiki Museum to /IMG_3173.htm

and Matthews Skiing spot above Oslo …. to here

and Wow ! The Opera House …. and /IMG_3237.htm to IMG_3284.htm

and back to the airport ….

Sailing in Lankawi …

The wind came up and we had some pretty good sailing … complements to the rather good camera-person ..just hover over the utube link ..

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oI0x-uBxGg 

Langkawi Holiday (Malaysia)

Hello Just a few words about our holiday (a commentary on pictures posted elsewhere …) just  call up one picture from the links below and then you should get a low bandwidth picture preview when you hover your mouse over the links…

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1743.htm is a picyire of the inside of a jumbo jet , for those who have never had the pleasure of a longhaul jet flight …..

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1788.htm is a picture of a Monitor Lizard this place is teaming with them …

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1794.htm is a bit of the ‘picture postcard’ that is this island … very pretty ..

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1804.htm is a Tree Squirell.

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1903.htm the sailing out here has been pretty good ….

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1841.htm the pool-side life has rather good ….

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1844.htm .. some rain …

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1859.htm … this restaurant had its floor blown through the roof by the suanami …

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/langkawi08/html/IMG_1865.htm .. this is the boardwalk that disappeared in the suanami ..

All in all we are having a good stay here and a good rest .. love to all ..

Richard and Gill  

Recompile the EeePC Xandros Linux Kernel

Hello

 William Ruckman has posted this on his blog …

http://ruckman.net/tech/2008/01/24/recompile-the-eeepc-xandros-kernel/ 

 

So higher memory support, iptables (netfilter) / Firewalls can be installed and the native xandros advanced desktop still used.

 Acknowledgements to William Ruckman

 RJ  

Securing the Asus Eee PC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

http://www.eeeuser.com/ 

www.GoEducation.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFLJJw6WRqM

http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-first-impressions-and-gpl.html

Hello

I have recently acquired an eeepc.

This is how it looks in relation to normal laptops..

I was intriged by the price and the size. I have a need to run a linux machine of a convenient form factor ..ie small.

It does a lot of good things , straight out of the box, on the face of it has full pc functionality and applications, and with a little tweaking the repositories setup for it enable a really full desktop gui., but unfortuneately it has had the security built out of it (ie no ip-tables support)

This will involve the recompilation of the kernel so that Firestarter or Guraddog can be installed, which are convenient guis for configuring the iptables system that is normally built into a linux kernel.

This guy is a about to do it (I hope) ..

http://ruckman.net/tech/category/eeepc

and he has linked to these sites which look authoritative. While I have recompiled kernels in the past (when I have been paid to do it ..) ,  because of the way the filesystems and partitions work on the eeepc it will take a little more care than usual. 

WilliamRuckman has linked to

http://appliedlife.blogspot.com/2007/11/kernel-recompile-on-asus-eee.html ..

and

http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/202/1/ 

as sources of information on dealing with the issue of securing an eeepc ..

Watch this space …. I am hoping to get some time to secure the eeepc with a new kernel build soon .

I will probably use this as the methodology as it should generate a ‘standard’ kernel with iptables ..

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:rebuildthekernel#changing_the_configuration

Mendocino

Hello

I did post this link some time ago but didn’t provide any comment.

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/mendocino/index.htm  (right click the link and take the option to open in another window; ditto for the rest of the links too)

Anyway … having looked through the pics they are all shots of what goes on in Mendocino (ie not very much these days ….) that is apart from tourism (us) and the brave few undertaking surfing and kayaking (with a spot of fishing) and some sailing (see IMG_1253 where the little Hobie cat takes off as it goes around the headlands and hits the pacific swell ..!) …

However the history of Mendocino is rather striking. It was taken over by people from Maine (about 1900 ?) who brought their rather nice architecture (see IMG_1234 Headlands Inn where we stayed … smashing place) and their exotic skills of dealing with 15 ft wide redwoods and getting them down to the seashore , sawn up and onto boats where there were no protected harbours by a process of shutes setup over protruding rockfaces and literally firing them into boats out at sea where workman braked the flow on the shute so the guys on the boats could catch them and stack them without them getting catapaulted through the bottom of the boat ..!

IMG_1337 shows the famous breakfast “to die for” … it must be related to that required for a log man to do his duty for the day …

We managed to walk round the headlands without spotting any rattlesnakes …. fortuneately this was not bear country apparently .. excellent country for trying out the 40x telephoto with Image Stabilitiser on the Canon Powershot S5 (my recent birthday present ..thanks Gill )… I wasn’t actually getting too wet getting the surfing pictures.

Altogether a rather nice place to go to and do nothing ….

Mendocino, Highway 1, Sausilito , sailing in the Bay

Hello again. Just a quick post to leave another link to a set of pictures that describe the last part of our stay in California.

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/mendocino2/index.htm 

_DSCN0963 to _DSCN0965 and IMG_1440 to IMG_1447 show pictures of sailing done in San Franscisco Bay … Many Thanks to Mike’s friend John who gave up some of his day to allow somebody to do a tourist trip in the Bay … I am very very grateful to him (and to Mike for twisting his arm).

_DSCN0966 to _DSCN0984 show some pictures (of varying quality of our party in the evening at Scoma’s superbe seafood restaurant in Sausilito on the front with rather breathtaking views of San Fransciso bay. Many many thanks to Ruth for organising such a magnicicent venue.

The rest of the pictures are various views from Highway 1 on our way back from Mendocino with a a couple of shots of the inside of Headlands Inn … highly recommended place to stay !

Mendocino

Hi

I forgot to leave this link …. will write and desccribe the pics soon …

http://www.computersecurityuk.com/mendocino/index.htm

Bye … Richard and good bye