iPad Blogging

Blogging with the iPad is possible, but requires a slightly lateral approach.

The Safari browser lacks the capacity to upload images, so if that's what you want to do, it becomes a two-stage process.

First, you need to compose the post, including any images, and save it as a document. In this case I've used iWorks.

Then you send it to your regular computer, (using email or the MobileMe application) and post it from there. You can make a text-only post if you want to complete the whole exercise using only the iPad.

Apparently there are browsers being developed for the tablet which overcome the problem, but for now I'm happy to keep using Safari until I build up my skill base.

This is the finished product. The pic is for illustrative purposes only.

Camera Saga

My camera has turned up, so I've been able to retrieve the photos that were on it. The fact that it took over six weeks to be returned, is a story in itself.

I left it in a Europcar rental in Perth. My contention is that it was never lost, as I knew exactly where it was - safely out of the sun in the lidded centre console. As soon as I boarded the aircraft for the flight home, I realised it was missing, so immediately on arrival in Brisbane, I phoned Europcar to ask them to retrieve it. I suggested they post it to me COD.

The person who took the call sounded distracted, so I wasn't surprised when I phoned back a week later to be told that no trace had been found. I was assured that the car had been checked the day I phoned. At this point I gave up ever seeing it again.

The advice that the car had been ckecked turned out to be nonsense, of course, when I got a text message from a bloke from Darwin explaining he'd found the camera exactly where I'd left it when he hired the same car a week later. He'd read my mobile number from the inside lid of the camera case where I'd written it. I always label my possessions, a habit initially picked up in boarding school as a kid, and reinforced in the army.

He asked me what I wanted done with the camera, so I asked him if he could hand it in to Europcar when he returned the vehicle. He offered to post it to me, but I figured he'd gone to enough trouble.

I was later to regret this.

He let me know he'd handed it in, and I phoned Europcar shortly afterwards to make sure they knew it was mine, and asked them to post it COD. I was assured this would happen before COB that day.

Two weeks later, the camera hadn't turned up, so I tried a different tack. It was at this point I began regretting not accepting the offer of the bloke who found it to post it direct. I emailed Europcar on their customer feedback page, and explained my problem. This worked.

I got a phone call from the Perth depot manager apologising and explaining that the camera had been located in the office safe, and had been posted (at their expense).

It turned up three days later. I sent the guy from Darwin a small reward.

When it finally arrived I found it impossible to read my phone number because the print on the label had run, but this bloke had deciphered it. Maybe it got damp somehow in transit.

It was good to get it back - it has sentimental value, having travelled all over Australia, been to  Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and twice to Vietnam. It also takes good shots and is robust and user friendly.

Attached to this are a few of the shots that were on it.

BTW, it's an Olympus C-310 which I bought in 2005.

Araluen - WA

 Adelaide Air Museum

Beer tasting - brewery - Margaret River

King's Park - Perth

Loco - Adelaide Rail Museum

Busselton WA

Peasants' Revolt

We've heard plenty recently about the revolt of the irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin against the Authority's plan to limit access to water.

The media, particularly the Oz, have made a meal of it, and every conservative politician within yodelling distance has fronted up in an attempt to wedge the government on the issue.

A little closer to home for me, there is an issue creating just as much angst on the part of primary producers on the Downs, but it's to a large extent flying below the radar, as far as big media is concerned. We're talking, incidentally about some of the most productive (and well-managed) land in the country.

I'm referring, of course, to the mining projects centred on the Surat basin.

In the last couple of days, there's been an announcement that the largest open cut coalmine in the world will be built at Wandoan. At the moment, this is a sleepy little rural township, with the regulation school, a couple of pubs, and some newly constructed motels. Apparently the nearest mining infrastructure can't be built any closer to the township than 2 kilometres, but if this thing is as big as promised, that really won't mean a thing.

Just up the road is the Guluguba State School, which is apparently built squarely on the seam. I wonder what will become of it.

The evidence of this race to exploit the basin is everywhere - even before a sod is turned. As you drive up the Warrego, you observe the strange sight of speed limit signs lying at 30 degrees to the horizontal for kilometre after kilometre. The reason for this is the damage caused by the trucking of over size plant and equipment out to development sites with no regard to roadside infrastructure. The contractors who move this stuff (at great cost to the integrity of the road and hours of time of anyone unfortunate enough to come across them) don't give a stuff. The bizarre element of this is that the escorting police deliberately run oncoming traffic off the road, at great risk to tyres and vehicle. I've experienced this frequently in the last few years.

This totally arrogant attitude to the rights of the locals is reflected in the legislation that allows unfettered access to private land for exploration and extraction. I remember the wailing and knashing of teeth about the largely symbolic outcome of the Mabo decision - the mining legislation makes Mabo look like the Teddy Bear's picnic.

But it's OK of course, because it's done in the name of making a quick quid.

These same extractive companies also have unfettered access to the precious underground aquifer. Recent discoveries of cancer-producing elements in some of the bores created a brief hue and cry, but it doesn't take long for the miners and the government to get their stories to line up, and the media forget about it.

Some of the techniques used are known to be dangerous, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. "Abundance of caution"  is an unknown concept.

The farmers are beginning to get upset. Out here, they're a tolerant easy-going lot - but they're not about to let their lifestyles and the future of their kids get trashed by an unholy alliance of big government and big miners.

Watch this space.

Grey Porridge

This week She Who Must be Obeyed (the fleet manager) set me up in a Toyota Camry.

Again, this car needed to get kilometres up in a hurry because it was brand new, and was due its first (1000km) service. My trip was about this length - a bit more as it turned out - so I picked it up just after it had been delivered with 30km on the clock.

Typical Toyota - it smelt funny, had all the ambiance of an Electrolux, and behaved exactly as the brochures described.

It also had Bluetooth, but after driving myself nuts, I gave up on trying to get it to work. I had better and less time-consuming things to do. As a rule of thumb I never read instruction manuals. They're for dropkicks who can't work stuff out by themselves - but in the end out of exasperation I was forced to. I've set up plenty of Bluetooth programs before (in Hyundais, Volkswagens and Fords) without hassles and without handbooks..

Using the handbook just made it worse, as the instructions read as if they'd been translated badly from Japanese into Russian, and then back into English.

What I finished up with was a kind of lottery. Sometimes the audio would pick up the phone part of the iPhone, sometimes the iPod part. It was entirely unpredictable as to which was operating at any given time, so I had to take the precaution of having my Blueant set up as a back-up. I tend to get lots of calls on the road.

Funny thing is, no matter what mode it was working in, it always muted the audio when a call came through.

Driving this thing reminded me of my son's 1996 Camry. Not much has changed.

It was as dull as grey porridge. The duco was actually white - hence the refrigerator reference.

Ipadding

Finally I succumbed and bought an iPad.

I can rationaliise it by claiming that it will be a great help in making me more productive at work. I can make notes on the go in schools and classrooms, email them to myself, so that my reports are completed on the same day. This will make a real difference.

But secretly (you won't tell my bride, dear reader will you?) it should allow me to blog on the go.

The thing can be set up either to work off the Telstra 3G network, or to seek a Wi-Fi link, so I can get on-line at home using my Belkin server, or to find one of the many rapidly proliferating links in restaurants and coffee shops.

I've downloaded a neat (and free) application that finds the closest free Wi-Fi outlets as you move around, and highlights them on an on-screen map. 

The only problem I have is that I haven't yet worked out how to upload media other than print.

I'm working on it.

Any suggestions?

Update - I have to buy another piece of kit which allows me to load pics directly from my camera on to the iPad.

Fleeting

One of the most entertaining aspects of my job is the unpredictable variety of the cars I get to drive.

The organisation I work for accesses a very large fleet of leased vehicles, which is in a constant state of flux. The fleet manager has to juggle usage so that at the end of the 24 month lease period, the kilometres travelled match, as closely as possible, the lease prediction.

I'm not sure what happens if this isn't managed properly, but I presume there is a financial penalty. Those of you who have salary packaged cars (as I did when I was working full time) will understand what I'm on about.

Because I cover more distance than just about anyone else in this region, I often get allocated vehicles which need to clock up lots of kilometres in a short time near the end of the lease period.

This happened last week when I was slotted into a Volkswagen Jetta Diesel to travel to St George, Roma and Injune.

This Jetta is the only one I've ever come across, and it was originally part of a salary package for a senior executive. This same head honcho became very ill, and had to relinquish the position, so the car was returned to the fleet to be put to economical use until its lease expired.

Because it was an executive's car, it was the top of the range version, with all the bells and whistles. By the time I'd covered the 1500 km which comprised the week's work, I'd just about sussed them out (the bells and whistles - I mean).

It is a very pleasant car, and being a diesel, very economical on such a journey. It used about 5 litres for every 100 kms, although cruising at 100kmh used less than that - about 4.7 lit/100km. This parsimony with the go-juice didn't come at the cost of performance. When called on to overtake the various grades of grain trucks, mining machinery and cattle crates that infest the Warrego highway, it responded with verve. It actually outperforms your average six (Holden or Falcon) in a typical overtaking manoeuvre because of the vast amount of torque available between 2000 and 3000 rpm. The super efficient DSG six-speed gearbox helps, as it masks the small amount of turbo lag that is occasionally evident.

It also cruises at 100kph with the diesel ghosting along at 2000rpm, which is the main reason for its low fuel consumption. Diesel may well be the way of the future, although it often costs a few cents per litre more than unleaded.

Strangely enough, diesel was actually cheaper than 91 RON at Roma, but this may have been an anomaly - it's always a few cents dearer in Toowoomba and Brisbane.

The fleet manager is a very grounded person (you'd have to be in her job) but she does tend to get a bit rattled when people misfuel the diesels. It happens fairly regularly.

Despite the fact that the cars are emblazoned with stickers shouting "diesel fuel only", some of the dozier members of the organisation entertain a belief that only 4WDs use diesel.

These are usually the same people who return vehicles with melted chocolate, chips and spilled coffee all over the interior. It drives me nuts.

Lipstick

I don't know if any teachers read this blog - but those who do might enjoy the following -

A certain private school in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs was recently faced with an unusual problem.

A number of the girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the Principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.  He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet bowl, and cleaned the mirror with it

The silence was broken by a large number of gasps, a few girls vomited and apparently someone fainted . Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers . . . and then there are educators.