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Family Holiday 2011 – Day 1: Highworth

08 Aug

Once again this year the family are holidaying in the UK, for the second year in a row we have booked a cottage with Farm & Holiday Cottages. Last year we spent a week in Bideford, Devon and this year we’ll be spending a week just outside of Wells, Somerset. The reason for using Farm & Holiday Cottages is that many of the lets allow dogs to stay and the brochure makes it very easy to determine whether a property does or doesn’t accept four legged friends.

Although the title says it is Day 1 it is actually Friday, 5th August and the holiday doesn’t officially start until Saturday. However, to break up the long journey from Eastbourne to Wells we are staying at my sisters at Highworth, just outside of Swindon. Planning a journey during the summer holidays and especially on a Friday means avoiding the M25 like the plague. Any other time we’d use the M23, M25, M3 & M4 but not this time; instead we took the scenic route starting with the A23 at Brighton for a few junctions turning off at Haywards Heath and heading towards Petersfield, then in the general direction of Winchester and finally north to Swindon.

Bing Map Directions Eastbourne to Highworth

Our decision was soon vindicated when we heard on the travel news of severe delays on the M25; as we weren’t in any real hurry it was also rather relaxing passing through small towns and villages of East then West Sussex before crossing the county boundary into Hampshire and ultimately Wiltshire.

My sister and brother-in-law are always very welcoming, we enjoy the relaxed time we spend with them and generally putting the world to rights. For the first time I received a warm welcome from my niece Amy, normally she runs a mile or hides behind Mum. Friends and family probably think that she is very sensible to take the previous approach but for me I much prefer the new one.

After catching up with Sarah and Nathan, making their house a mess with all our clutter, we settled down to a pleasant evening with a Chinese take-away. After the food we retired to the new decking which as Sarah and Nathan both acknowledge is work in progress, but is already very relaxing and well positioned to catch the last of the sun.

A few bottles of beer and a bottle of wine later everyone was starting to feel tired so we called it a night bringing day one of our holiday to an end.

 
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Updating Pure Highway firmware

13 Oct

The Pure Highway DAB radio that is designed for in-car use periodically receives firmware updates. Unfortunately the executable file that is provided on the Pure support download page does not seem to work on Windows Vista or Windows 7. Digging a bit deeper it would appear a manual process can be used to update the firmware on these newer Microsoft operating systems.

First of all you’ll need to download the latest firmware from Pure:

Firmware download page

At the time of writing the latest firmware version is 1.5 and the executable to download is HIGHWAY_1_5.exe

Now if you have Windows XP (32bit version) you should be able to just run the downloaded executable. However, for latter versions of Microsoft operating systems you’ll probably receive an error like the following.

SNAGHTMLb58e4d

So lets take a step back and do a walk through of updating the firmware on a Windows Vista 32 bit client, the same procedure will work on a Windows 7 32 bit client as well (some of the screenshots may differ).

Unfortunately I’m not aware of a 64 bit driver for the Pure Highway so updating the firmware natively through a 64 bit client operating system (Windows XP, Vista or 7) is not possible. See my note on how this can still be done using Virtual PC / Windows XP Compatibility Mode at the end of this article

Download WinRar

In order to run the update you will need to unpack the downloaded executable. I recommend using WinRAR that can be downloaded from the following link (please read the license agreement before installing)

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

Install WinRAR as we’ll need to use it in a minute or two.

Windows Vista / 7 Walkthrough

To reiterate this will only work on a 32 bit version of the client, not 64bit (check the last section for advice).

Right click the Pure firmware executable that you downloaded and select the option “Run as administrator”:

image

You’ll probably get another pop-up that warns about an unidentified program accessing your computer, Select the “Allow…” option:

image

The Pure firmware should run and the next step will be a “Welcome” screen, select Next:

image

The firmware program explains you need a USB cable with a type A connection at one end and a mini-B connection at the other, Connect the PC and Pure Highway accordingly, then click Next, if in doubt check the graphics shown in the dialogue box

image

The setup hardware screen shows that the next step needs to be completed on the Pure Highway DAB radio itself. Following the instructions and use the graphics to assist:

image

Once you press the central button on the Pure Highway hardware to confirm the upgrade your PC should try to identify and load the driver software, it is at this point it will fail or just not progress. You may receive the following error message or pop-up from the system tray:

SNAGHTMLc8c2f4

Or;

image

Regardless of which message you get the next few steps will instruct you how to manually update the driver to progress the install. N.B. do not close or exit the Pure Highway upgrade utility whilst carrying out the manual steps below

 

Manually Loading the Pure Highway Driver

I’m assuming you have followed my earlier advice, downloaded WinRAR and installed the software, if not you need to do so now before progressing any further.

Now return to the Pure Highway executable that was downloaded, right click and this time select “Extract to HIGHWAY_1_5\” or something similar:

image

 

Different Steps Depending on Initial Failure

In the previous section I explained that the Pure Highway install could stop in two ways. If you received a system tray icon stating that the “Device driver software was not successfully installed” as opposed to the dialogue box “Found new hardware” you’ll need to take the following steps:

Go to Device Manager under System Control Panel Applet or right click the My Computer Icon and select Manage

Now right click the PURE Digital Highway with the associated yellow icon and select “Update Driver Software”

image

However, if you received the “Found new hardware” dialogue box you’ll need to complete separate steps

Select the “Locate and Install driver software (recommended)” option, followed by accepting the “User Access Control” option to install device drivers by selecting Continue

 image

Follow this by selecting “Don’t Search online” in the next dialogue window:

image

 

Back on the same path

Now we can use the step steps regardless of the initial failure.

Select “Browse my computer for driver software (advanced)” in the dialogue window

image

In the next step use the Browse button to navigate to the folder that was created by the WinRAR extract process earlier on in this walkthrough:

image

You’ll need to accept the Windows Security alert and “Install this driver software anyway”

image

After a few minutes you should receive a confirmation box and a pop-up in the system tray confirming successful loading of the necessary drivers:

image

image

 

Pure Highway Firmware Upgrade

Now the drivers are successfully installed you can return to the Pure Highway Installation programme which will have automatically moved on a screen now the driver is loaded. You need to select Next to continue:

image

The software will show a progress bar and the update should continue as described by the Pure Highway Firmware Read me.

What About 64bit OS like Windows 7?

As stated previously the install will only work natively on a 32 bit version of an operating system, the executable doesn’t include 64 bit drivers so the aforementioned method will not work. However, in Windows 7 32bit or 64 bit you can use Virtual PC, in the case of Windows 7 Ultimate and Professional  a ready made XP Compatibility Mode is available and licensed, otherwise it is a case of DIY with evaluation editions of a 32 bit version of the OS.

Virtual PC allows USB pass-through and as the guest OS is 32 bit you can use the method described above or in the case of XP Compatibility Mode just run the Pure Highway Firmware upgrade utility directly. For more info follow the link:

Windows XP Compatibility Mode and Virtual PC for Windows 7

 

Reviews

If you want to know what I think about the Pure Highway then follow the links to my review on Ciao and Dooyoo

Pure Highway DAB reviewed on Ciao

Pure Highway DAB reviewed on Dooyoo

 
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Dooyoo, Ciao!?

01 Oct

No idea what I am talking about? Well up until last weekend nor had I, although I’d seen the domain names in internet search engine results. Both Dooyoo and Ciao are review sites, you join as a member to write reviews on products, services, etc. These reviews are linked to the specific product and the product links through to various online stores. The companies make money from referrals.

 

But wait, what is in it for me?

Good question and for a change the answer is NOT nothing. For every review you write you receive a small amount of money either directly, in the case of Ciao, or indirectly with Dooyoo. The latter gives you Dooyoo miles which can then be turned into Amazon gift tokens or cash.

 

Sign me up I’m gonna be rich, rich, rich!

Steady on you are not going to be able to give up your day job.

 

The Ciao! way

In the case of Ciao! they advertise a cash payment based on the importance of the product to them, I would assume this is based on the affiliate amount they get and conversion rate with the merchant selling the item. If you are the first to review an item in a specific category then you can double the amount received.The standard amounts are…… 0.5p, 1p or 2p

 

What! Is that all you get, what’s the point?

I did say you wouldn’t be able to retire just yet. The payments comes from ratings of other members both in terms of quality and quantity. You can earn up to £3 per review. The normal rating scale is off-topic, somewhat helpful, helpful, very helpful and the rare and sought after exceptional. Another way to earn money is from the mysterious premium fund, each month Ciao give out £2,000 and this is divided across the “best” authors. What constitutes a quality author is not obvious and how the premium fund is divided across categories is not published either. However, pay-outs range from 12p to £30 so it is strong encouragement to write quality reviews. Ciao also run other specific competitions for cash rewards which are advertised on the community board. As well as money Ciao offer a points system which has no cash pay-out but increases your standing in the community. The higher your standing the more people are likely to follow you and the more followers the greater the chance that your review will be read and rated. It also pays (literally) to rate other peoples reviews as the chances are they will read and rate your reviews. It also builds a strong community feeling turning a review site into a social network.

 

So what about Dooyoo?

In principle Dooyoo is a very similar to Ciao, but the implementation is slightly different. Each review will receive 600, 300 or 100 Dooyoo miles dependent on the category it falls into and the importance to Dooyoo (more technical categories tend to fall into level 3). You also receive extra miles for each rating given by a member, the payments per read follow the same three-level principle but are 20,15,10 Dooyoo miles. Once you reach 20,000 miles you you can exchange for a £20 Amazon token, you can wait until 50,000 miles and get a £50 cheque. Again, like Ciao, Dooyoo offers competitions and prizes to earn more miles. The top reviews are awarded Crowns in recognition for the quality of the review.

What can I review and how hard is it to do?

On both sites you can pretty much rate anything from TV, Hi-Fi’s, Computers Gadgets, through to books, CDs, food, beauty and accommodation. You just need to spend some time researching the item or service and then writing in a interesting or useful style. A few sentences won’t suffice and the more highly rated reviews appear to be well over a 1,000 words.

So what are you waiting for?

On Ciao I write as Sussex-Paul & Ali is Ali_Sussex

or

Dooyoo I write as PaulinSussex

 

 
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Out with the old, in with the new

26 Sep

Yesterday we said goodbye to our two old cars and hello to two new ones. Bit of background around our decision making is that we tend to buy cars on a Personal Contract Purchase(PCP) over a three year period which on the whole works for us as we have a set monthly payment and a new car every three years.

Ali had a Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet (have I mentioned that I didn’t like it and avoided driving it at all costs?)  which was out of contract in December. Ali loved the “Bug” and does very low mileage, but was considering a smaller car like a Volkswagen Polo.

At the same time my Audi A4 was getting increasingly costly to run with tyres needing replacing every 12 months at almost £1,000, replacement break discs and break pads hanging over from the last service. That on top of the monthly payments and fuel costs.

The original plan before visiting the showroom was to look for a new Polo for Ali and a nearly new second-hand Passat for me. Of course best laid plans never turn out the way you think. Several hours were spent at Caffyn’s Eastbourne with the very patient Wayne who we dealt with when the Beatle was purchased (he is very easy to deal with which is a refreshing change in the car sales arena). In the end it turned out finance on second-hand cars is awful, 11% APR, whereas new cars attract 4.7% APR so it is cheaper to buy new!

Enough waffle (I’m sure Becky or Ali will comment) and on to the the new cars. Ali now has the family car which is a Golf Plus SE 1.6TDi Bluemotion. Bluemotion is the VW sub-brand for high efficiency cars which in the Golf Plus guise means start / stop technology, lower rolling resistance tyres and recuperation technologies. The outcome is 65.7mpg (combined) and 114g/km CO2 as opposed to 58.9mpg and 126g/km for the non-Bluemotion version.

I’ve gone for a Jetta SE (Golf with a boot) 1.6TDi and DSG. DSG is the dual-clutch automatic gearbox that has won VW/Audi a number of awards. The reason for choosing this car was the fact it was available at a very good price, it appeared VW UK were trying to move some extra cars before the end of September. It is a fairly large step down from the A4 which was a 2.0TDi Quattro S-Line. But the fuel economy goes from ~42mpg in the A4 to ~60mpg in the Jetta, just £30 pa for road-tax over ~£150 for the A4 and the insurance is a whopping £200 less per year.

Too early for a review as yet but watch this space….

 
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Posted in Family, Finance

 

Oops!

19 Sep

Of course this means that I should actually read where I am posting a comment rather than putting it in the title box and then pressing enter!

Middle of September and the holiday seems a very distant memory. Chris is now in Year 5 and seems to be doing ok although he much prefers his tutoring from Charlie to being in lessons. Becky is now a college student and finding her feet. I think she is enjoying the difference from school but the homework has come as a bit of a shock!

Me? School is ok – a challenging class but smaller than last year which makes it a bit easier. My biggest bugbear at the moment is my dyslexia course (I think everyone around me is fed up of hearing about this). I am on the last leg having successfully completed 2 essays and passed but this part is threatening to tip me over the edge. I have to submit a teaching plan and then work with a child 1:1 for 20 hours of Literacy teaching from now until Christmas. I also have to try to fit in 5 hours with another child for Numeracy. I then have to create a teaching file with lesson plans evaluated (sounds like being back at university!) as well as a 2,000 word summary before submitting this to the University of Brighton by January 2011. Oh, and did I mention that I am being observed for the first time this Wednesday?! When you work full-time this is surprisingly difficult to fit everything in. Still, hopefully all will become clearer as things progress.

 
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Internet Explorer 9 – Beta

18 Sep

The newest version of Internet Explorer has been released as a beta by Microsoft, you can download it here. I’m not going to attempt to do a complete review of the new version from a technical perspective as others are doing that already, e.g. Paul Thurrott’s Winsupersite. I’m just making others aware and that it can be downloaded and given a try (it is beta so be cautious).

Clean Interface

The first thing I noticed was the minimalistic user interface, instead of the normal additions I was surprised by the reduction in toolbar and title bar area in the new version. This means more room for the web page itself and less distraction.

Navigation

I’m not sure I like the favourites and home page icons moving alongside the tools icon over on the right hand-side of the page. Maybe this will just be a case of getting used to the new location, I suppose it makes some sense as it doesn’t split icons between the two sides of the page.

Another thing that wasn’t immediately obvious was how to get a view of the recent pages and go back through the recent navigation history. It turns out the way to do this is pretty obvious your just right click the bigger back button:

But overall I’m liking the new look, feel and performance, so why not download it and see for yourself?

 
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Success – Beetroot and Sweet Potato Crisps

17 Sep

We have been using the Riverford Organic box scheme now for a number of years and love the diversity of vegetables that we receive. However, on occasion you do end up with something that you don’t really like. In the current box we are receiving Beetroot which is not our favourite vegetable. But in the box you also get a recipe card with some suggestions on things that you could try with the box contents. This week it included Beetroot crisps.

So this evening I tried making Beetroot and Sweet potato crisps (we had three sweet potatoes in the fridge so needed to use them up). Very easy to prepare just thinly slice the beetroot / sweet potato mix in a bowl with Vegetable / Sunflower oil, add some sea salt and then cook for an hour in the oven at 150 degrees C (or 140 degrees for fan assisted).

The result was a healthy snack food that went down well with me, Ali, Lucy (the dog) and the biggest critic of them all Chris. So recommend giving it a go

 
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Starting a blog

27 Aug

The intention is to take some time to keep people uptodate with the goings on in the Bendall/Eldrett house. With 2 children and a dog this should be relatively easy to achieve! Hopefully we will be a bit better at keeping this blog active, hmmm….

 
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