Nigel's blog

@sxa555 @OzoneVibe

2011-12-01T00:18:00.001Z

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@KerryCherries @OzoneVibe See how easy (bad design?) @F1Ellen @andrea_eyre @sxa555 @unkn0wnvariable @I_am_Jamm

2011-11-28T13:50:00.001Z

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@sxa555 you should be able to see my friends list on facebook - I didn't change anything ?

2011-09-25T12:52:00.001+01:00

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Ok so I wasn't mad - UARS did go not too far away around 30 mins ago (I am red dot)

2011-09-23T22:39:00.001+01:00

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@sxa555 24 mins ago. I'm not mad. It WAS close at the time. Look at the tracking data #fail

2011-09-23T22:38:00.001+01:00

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Very disappointing new mug from #thermos.lid leaks terribly

2011-07-24T09:35:00.001+01:00

Very disappointing new mug from #thermos.lid leaks terribly

Useless new insulated mug from #thermos .leaks like crazy

2011-07-24T09:14:00.001+01:00

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Smoked salmon sorted for later!

2011-07-22T07:15:00.001+01:00

Teddy

2011-07-16T16:54:00.001+01:00

Arrived

2011-07-15T16:42:00.001+01:00

Goodbyte #mvrweekend

2011-07-11T10:48:00.001+01:00

#mvrweekend 2

#mvrweekend 3

Sadly cant take one home #mvrweekend

Ok so we werent in this building but what a super location for #f1 camping #mvrweekend

Senna movie at #mvrweekend

2011-07-10T20:45:00.001+01:00

Senna movie at #mvrweekend

Sat on bank by wellington bridge

2011-07-10T18:05:00.001+01:00

Decided to sit by tunnel/bridge to watch #f1

And @planetf1 is on track at the british gp ! #F1

2011-07-10T15:50:00.001+01:00

Arna area party #f1

Becketts #2 #f1

2011-07-10T15:10:00.001+01:00

Still going on at #mvrweekend

2011-07-10T00:49:00.001+01:00

Dj yamamoto #mvrweekend

2011-07-09T22:32:00.001+01:00

@50ftwoman at #mvrweekend. Rocking and great intro

2011-07-09T19:51:00.001+01:00

#bbcf1 on grid #fq

2011-07-09T12:37:00.001+01:00

#bbcf1 team on grid. Better. Yay go team bbc #f1

View for qualifying today. Pit straight. #Silverstone #f1

Right opposite podium - pit straight gs for fp3/quali today. #F1

2011-07-09T10:00:00.001+01:00

Georgous jamie oliver #mvrweekend food #f1

2011-07-09T07:12:00.001+01:00

Alistair griffin on now #mvrweekend

#mvrweekend drivers #f1

#mvrweekend

@croftyf1 doing a great job of hosting #mvrweekend #f1

#mvrweekend chill #f1

@alexandra1608 cant see much but its rocking #mvrweekend

Calm before the storm. Literally! #Mvrweekend

2011-07-08T18:05:00.001+01:00

Not too muddy. Ground a bit wet but firm. Raining lightly @50ftwoman

2011-07-08T17:14:00.001+01:00

View from club. Watched gp2 practice. #F1

2011-07-08T16:08:00.001+01:00

Need this

2011-07-08T15:24:00.001+01:00

Starting to clear up? #F1

2011-07-08T14:10:00.001+01:00

New pits complex looks v. Good #f1

Your spot for tomorrow @kayels ?

2011-07-08T12:07:00.001+01:00

Fp1 over #f1 view from becketts. Tad cold

2011-07-08T11:11:00.001+01:00

View for today #f1 #silverstone #mvrweekend. Similar place, becketts sun

2011-07-08T09:49:00.001+01:00

Campsite this morning. Now on way to track #mvrweekend

2011-07-08T08:40:00.001+01:00

Sleeping place for the night #mvrweekend

2011-07-07T17:57:00.001+01:00

Location for music #mvrweekend

We're here at #mvrweekend

Arrived at the #mvrweekend

2011-07-07T17:13:00.001+01:00

Asda has these for £8 each @ozonevibe

2011-07-07T12:40:00.001+01:00

I think so. Essential camping equipment? @Ozonevibe

2011-07-05T00:56:00.001+01:00

Dinner. Not mine tho. Friends snake. He's quite cute

2011-07-03T18:22:00.001+01:00

Love these!

2011-07-01T19:34:00.001+01:00

Recognize this?

2011-06-30T17:41:00.001+01:00

Past uni students prob recognize this place!

Checking out #loughborough in the sun

2011-06-30T16:33:00.001+01:00

One of the destinations for later #aeronautical #engineering #loughborough

2011-06-30T08:37:00.001+01:00

Nearly time to grab a coffee #loughborough

If any bugs dare come this way i am prepared

2011-06-29T06:46:00.001+01:00

Glad to say gaggia still working fine. This afternoons coffee (americano) is made from this

2011-06-28T14:13:00.001+01:00

Bored? (Quick shot of youngest @stephfarnsworth )

Fire time

2011-06-26T21:45:00.001+01:00

Not long before #f1 now. So much for housework. Other priorities now

2011-06-26T12:27:00.001+01:00

Dont mind so much being woken up...

2011-06-25T09:58:00.001+01:00

Its that time

Location for dinner

2011-06-18T17:10:00.001+01:00

Yay! Watched by proud dad and girlfriend. Go jenson #f1

2011-06-12T22:43:00.001+01:00

Its a big screen #f1 #badgergpbash

2011-06-12T17:39:00.001+01:00

Watching the #bbcf1 buildup at #badgergpbash #f1

Wonder what this is

2011-06-12T14:25:00.001+01:00

Tea! (With loads of salad). Naughty lunch tho #fail

2011-06-09T21:22:00.001+01:00

This is supposed to be rather good....

2011-06-08T19:50:00.001+01:00

#f1 super yay

And it gets better. Twice over #f1 @ozonevibe #mvrweekend

The location for watching #senna in an hour #f1 #southampton

2011-06-06T20:05:00.001+01:00

Ok well its actually behind me. What a lovely location #f1 #senna

Oh help. Theres still beer left....

2011-06-04T16:04:00.001+01:00

Success. Optimum token use. Just one left from a moderate £15 worth. Helped at last minute by pork scratchings

Ready for the #southampton #camra beer festival

2011-06-04T11:56:00.001+01:00

Look what just arrived. Ok only small but all budget allowed. Should be fun

2011-06-01T13:51:00.001+01:00

Very simple inside the nice packaging

And so light

Location of current beer

2011-05-31T11:22:00.001+01:00

Having a coffee with this view whilst we relax in garden room waiting to disembark

Think i will give this a miss

2011-05-28T12:55:00.001+01:00

Local beer from a microbrewery in amsterdam. Rather yummy

2011-05-27T16:36:00.001+01:00

Leaving the lock (low res)

2011-05-27T10:41:00.001+01:00

This is the dress code for tonight

2011-05-26T17:12:00.001+01:00

Enjoying a walk in the breeze

2011-05-26T16:34:00.001+01:00

Pool

2011-05-26T15:27:00.001+01:00

Nice

2011-05-26T14:08:00.001+01:00

Guess where

2011-05-26T13:01:00.001+01:00

Portable Charging–New Trend IMP1000

2011-05-22T19:19:00.001+01:00

If you’re impatient, skip to the end for a cool gadget I’ve recently bought, if not read on!

In July I’m off to Silverstone to enjoy a full-on British Grand Prix weekend. I’ll be going upmarket camping with Virgin, and visiting the track each day for practice, qualifying & the race itself & spending raceday at the Becketts, also a step up from General Admission and the club bank last year

Key to a successful weekend is communications – keeping in touch with the friend I’m going with, calling home, using twitter/facebook to share photos & comments on what’s going on, arranging meetups etc. During the on track action itself I may also need to use FM radio or perhaps stream 5Live as well as check f1 timing results.

All of this is a huge drain on a phone’s battery, and by camping a secure power source isn’t guaranteed. Even with the possibility of a mobile charge station, or the ability to charge off a car battery I figured it was a safer option to go self-contained

Spare batteries

One easy option was simply to get more spare batteries. One issue with this is that if I change my phone later in the year they’ll be useless. I can also not charge other usb devices & finally locally sources quality batteries are pricey, and whilst I found a reliable chinese source postage delays could be a problem

USB charger

I’ve been sceptical of these. Most I’ve seen have been up to 5000 mAh. When charging another device apparently a loss of around 17% is to be expected, so that gives perhaps 3.5 charges of a 1500 mAh battery

I found one such deviceon amazon which proudly boasts a 11000 mAh capacity. That’s more than double the others yet still at a very reasonable price of around £40. I decided to order & use the device for charging my phone each day.

New Trent IMP1000

A few days later this greeted me

Nice packaging. Clean and stylish.

Inside the box:

In the box:

2A charger
Powerpack containing a 11000 mAh battery
A USB cable ending up in a simple power jack connector
A series of replaceable tips including the obligitory micro USB (my interest)

The unit itself has only one USB port unlike some units

Charging of the unit itself isn’t via USB, but via a regular power connector (2A)

Time to plug it in!

At this point I left it for most of the day – it actually took less time than this, around 6 hours

The unit was now charged so at this point it’s simply a case of plugging in any USB device to the unit.

Most of my experimentation so far has been with my N900 – one thing I did note is regardless of whether I used the provided cable or a regular cable the phone only charged at 500mAh – half the quoted figure.

Whilst the USB spec generally restricts PC etc ports & regular cables to 500mAh, AC adapters will typically use special cables that signal to the device to draw more power. arguably the provided cable or particularly the unit itself should provide this signal, though there’s clearly a lack of consistency in how charges and devices currently handle this.

I decided not to worry too much and carry on at the regular charge rate.

Results

I opted to ONLY use the New Trent to charge my fairly energy heavy Nokia N900 handset all week

start mAh	end mAh	charge input mAh
0 (dead)	1222	1222
471	1222	751
942	1222	280
888	1222	34
5	1222	1217
722	1222	383
0	531	531
234	1222	988
5	1222	1217
5	1222	1217 (At this point unit showed 2 LEDs)
0	174	174 (this reading after unit had switched off so included some drain)

That makes a total of 8131 mAh charges, a little below the expected ~9000 mAh though these figures include some battery draining as t

Note also that the lithium battery in phone and charger is 3.7V, whilst USB is 5V, so you will not get 11000 mAh at 5V – the internal battery is 11000 mAh at 3.7V. So there is conversion going on – and figures I’ve read online suggest on average you can expect to get around 17% less capacity from a USB charger due to these conversion losses of the full charge/discharge cycle.

Conclusion

Definately Recommended – addresses a real problem with a sensible price & usable unit

Benefits

Delivers nearly much power as expected in unscientific tests
easy to charge from mains
reasonably compact/light for the capacity
easy to use
excellent value

Caveats

May only get 500 mAh charge
only a single port
cannot be charged from USB

Southampton parking

2011-05-21T15:27:00.001+01:00

--
Sent from my Nokia N900 using Nokia Messaging

Posted via email from planetf1's posterous

Popped out for a quick lunch walk. Seriously nice out here. 10 mins dog ball play in order

2011-05-16T13:35:00.001+01:00

Usb charging pack arrived. Yay 11000 mAh backup. From 'new trent'

2011-05-14T09:00:00.001+01:00

In the box

Just one port in this model rated at 1A but went or higher capacity

Charges off 2A power. Not usb (ie in car etc). We'll see if this works out

Charging now. This will take a while

Lunch made for #f1

2011-05-08T13:20:00.001+01:00

We will rock you

2011-05-06T19:26:00.001+01:00

Yay nearly time #wewillrockyou

Fire still nice and warm. Playing silly games bit loosing the plot. Pass the wine...

2011-05-01T23:11:00.001+01:00

:-)

2011-04-29T16:33:00.001+01:00

At friends for street party. Heres tinkerbelle

2011-04-29T15:14:00.001+01:00

Having a pretty walk with teddy

2011-04-27T19:04:00.001+01:00

Ouch

They can't take the pace!

2011-04-23T23:40:00.001+01:00

Only allowed short walks after op so....

2011-04-22T19:02:00.001+01:00

Family bbq time

2011-04-22T14:56:00.001+01:00

Bless. Not super impressed but doing good

2011-04-21T01:25:00.001+01:00

Getting ready for sleep too

Demoing pixelpipe to @xplane0202

2011-04-17T19:29:00.001+01:00

Arbous is done . Phew

2011-04-17T18:57:00.001+01:00

Ok so simple drill into wood this bit has broken unnaceptable. Think will ask for money back

2011-04-17T16:18:00.001+01:00

Nice idea but cheap tatt?

We!l i did only need a 3mm bit...

Diy time

2011-04-17T13:23:00.001+01:00

I make that 110 screws grr

A right bag full

nexus s troubles & poor service from Carphone Warehouse

2011-04-10T21:58:00.001+01:00

We’ve had a samsung nexus-s for a few months, taken out from CPW alongside a £30/month Vodafone 24m contract

A couple of weeks ago our Samsung Nexus S started becoming troublesome – it would pretty much just hang after a few minutes use. After the usual attempts at removing apps, and resetting we gave up and as it was under warranty decided to return it to the Carphone Warehouse branch in Eastleigh who send it for repair. We made sure our problem description was included which stated:

Here’s that note:

Problems:

Phone will lock up completely if left for a period of time (few hours at most). only way to fix is to remove battery
- sometimes lock screen appears when power button is pressed, but screen won't respond and pressing the lock button again causes the screen to go blank completely
when phone is turned on, it stays on the google screen and won't boot up properly
phone buttons (4 at the bottom) light up when power button is pressed, but screen stays blank
sometimes the android logo comes up with an "!" mark in the background when i try to unlock it
if phone left on overnight, it has turned off by the morning and will only turn back on again if battery is removed and then re-inserted (power was plugged in all night)

All problems started Mon 28th March for no apparent reason

What I've tried:

removing all apps
leaving wifi +3g data switched off
leaving battery out of phone for 15 mins or so
removing sim card
formatting built in flash memory
factory reset
android 2.3.3 update re flashed
entire android 2.3.3 o/s reflashed

None of these have fixed the problem, so appears to be HW fault (PBA?)

With all that prepared the phone was duly sent off from the Eastleigh branch on Sat 2 April. We were advised it could take up to 14 days if repaired by CPW, or 28 if sent to samsung. Frustrating but clearly getting it fixed was important.

The “fixed” phone

It was actually “fixed” within a week, and on Friday 8 April we collected. Switching on the phone for the first time we saw this:

No huge surprises there, but possibly different, but the big give away was this

Yes – note that red box – things are looking very dubious. When we look more we get a big surprise:

Yes – you saw that, a “crespo” test build of Android 2.4

The loaded apps are “wrong” too – some things are missing, some icons differ, sync via google account isn’t possible and there’s a test app “lbstestmod”:

Ok still with me – so at this point we’re sat here thinking that clearly they have not left the phone in an end-user state, but perhaps they were seeing if 2.4 fixed the hang problem – quite reasonable PD – so with this in mind lets leave the phone on.

Sure enough – crash – phone hangs again within 5 minutes. Battery out/in, happens again

Legal situation

Within 6 months the seller must prove the fault was not present at point of sale. This device is within this period, and thus it would be reasonable to approach CPW with the following:

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) states that when a consumer buys goods from a trader they must be: as described; of a satisfactory quality; and fit for any purpose made known at the time of sale to the seller.

This legislation also states that the seller, not the manufacturer, is legally obliged to sort out a problem if the goods do not meet these requirements.

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) says: if goods break within the first six months after purchase then there is a presumption the goods were faulty when sold.

My goods are not [delete as appropriate - as described/fit for purpose/of satisfactory quality] and I wish to claim a [delete as appropriate - repair/replacement/refund] of my goods under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended.

Summary

No attention paid to reported problem and PD notes

No simple visual test at repair center before device returned

unoffocial/prerelease software released to consumer

hang not tested/resolved

Additional check should have been done in-store

This level of service is appaling. Mistakes can be made but this is a catalogue of errors most of which are blatantly obvious.

Our request

A proper repair, with due care and attention paid to testing the device and consider the problems already reported.

Investigation as to how this device was returned in such a state, and actions put in place to prevent re-occurance

Given the inconvenience and continued payment of £30/month vodafone tariff an equivilent loaner phone or compensation to the tune of at least the unusable contract cost until the phone is confirmed working and returned

If this cannot be complied with we would persue this under the terms of the sales of goods act

Next steps

We are approaching carphone warehouse with this complaint along with samsung.

Beach now

2011-04-10T17:59:00.001+01:00

My view

Another view

Behind me

Moved a bit. So nice out.

Reading by the sand-dunes

From earlier. Teddy Still full of beans

Time to head back through the dunes

Georgous day to be by the coast

2011-04-10T16:49:00.001+01:00

This one geotagged

#f1 view pic

2011-04-10T09:15:00.001+01:00

Heres the #nexuss version #cpw #fail @jon_read

2011-04-08T18:53:00.001+01:00

Dont remember the padlock on boot screen #nexuss @jon_read

#nexuss repair from cpw. Not. Do they test?

2011-04-08T18:23:00.001+01:00

Some dodgy apps too. Lbs test mod? #Cpw #nexuss

Now this is interesting. Android 2.4 test build! #Nexuss #cpw

@ozonevibe look whats in this months digital slr photography!

2011-04-08T01:19:00.001+01:00

Sat in a deck chair at port solent. Lovely sun so unable to get up!

2011-04-03T17:01:00.001+01:00

Nope still cant get up

Teddy enjoying his day out too

Lovely walk. Stopping to out sandwiches here

2011-04-03T14:24:00.001+01:00

Playing ball with teddy in the woods

2011-03-28T18:02:00.001+01:00

Private? Been walking this way for 10 yrs.... Ummm...

2011-03-26T13:13:00.001Z

For some reason these boardwalks freak our pup out. So he walks through muddy gunk instead....

Enjoying walking through the woods

The exit from the blocked off field/path

Hey @macie_sherwood its working!

2011-03-20T23:01:00.001Z

Ready for #xfactorlive

2011-03-19T18:28:00.001Z

@xplane0202 playing gt4

Lovely evening

2011-03-13T18:12:00.001Z

Better than 1 hour! Dont think we needed this long..

Rabbit?

2011-03-13T17:40:00.001Z

By the water

Out in woods. Wonder whats below here.

2011-03-12T12:46:00.001Z

Nom nom. Premium British wiltshire back backon, free range egg, home made bread, teeny bit of chilli sauce. And 2nd coffee of day!

2011-03-06T12:24:00.001Z

Fun in the fields

2011-03-05T16:43:00.001Z

More fun with teddy

Space to run around

Plenty!

Last day on tenerife...

2011-02-26T12:43:00.001Z