Dell first impressions

Cloudy with gusty wind and intermittent light showers all day 18C today. More work was needed on a brief text introduction to the life of St Bridget of Sweden commemorated in next Wednesday's Morning Prayer, before I could record it. It seemed to take up most of the morning after breakfast.

I cooked a savoury lentil with veg dish with rice for lunch. I wasn't pleased with the result as I didn't give enough time to some components and too much time to others. Also, I didn't cook quite enough so we had to settle for modest sized portions. Cooking for more than two requires extra attention to detail. Anyhow, it tasted OK.

After lunch I recorded next Wednesday's Morning Prayer and Reflection, and edited it. This was the first occasion on which I have used my new Dell laptop. The version of Audacity downloaded from Microsoft's app store must be the latest. There are a few modifications to its look and feel, also changes in the layout of the drop down menus I use, which took me by surprise, but are not contentious or annoying. In order to arrange the file system to replicate my habitual workflow. 

On the Honor laptop, I chose to keep all my archived sound and video files on the device and not store them in the Cloud, as they take up a lot of space and I am determined not to exceed my free allocation and have to pay for storage, either to Microsoft or to Google. Everything I have in both cloud services is backed up on physical storage. I have sufficient cloud space for everyday tasks, the volume of new material I store other than photos, is very little nowadays. Enough is enough I reckon.

There's an odd quirk in the Dell's sound management menu which puzzled me. With headphones plugged in, sound comes from the loudspeakers, not from the headphones. The settings menu shows the opposite but if you reverse it, highlight the loudspeakers instead of headphones, sound comes from the headphones. Apart from that, the two channel stereo sound isn't erratic or broken, the sound quality is superb, superior to the Honor laptop. A larger screen is also an advantage in displaying more of a section of sound file at any time. Glad that I set aside my misgivings and bought this. It makes my weekly editing job smoother. Altogether a pleasure to use. 

Clare organised a hairdressing session for Louie with Chris at his salon in Rumney. I drove them there for a three fifteen appointment and returned immediately, leaving them to return by bus. Then I walked in the park for a couple of hours, by this time late in the afternoon, dodging rain showers under the trees, and returning in time for supper Jasmine and Louis stopped in town on their way back from Rumney and had supper there. Jasmine and I then went out for a short walk at twilight. Late to bed again.

St Mark's Day inauguration

Drove Clare to the Steiner School in Llandaff North for her classes this morning, then made my way East through the suburbs to reach Lakeside in time to celebrate a St Mark's Day Eucharist for seven faithful people. Then headed in to town, and left the car in the assigned parking place under the Motorpoint Arena where it had been arranged I would rendezvous with Ashley for another trip to Chepstow. As I was early, I made a trip to the Co-op Bank to complete a transfer of funds I'd only done half of during yesterday's bank visit to deal with a savings account come to maturity. This was followed by a visit to Santander's nearest banking station to arrange an account status change and take advantage of their latest offer. Then, back to the office to collect some equipment and set out for our radio suppliers' HQ in Chepstow.

It was good to have time to chat things over in the quiet of the car during our pleasant journey there and back. We got our new Dell tablet configured for remote access to the SafetyNet server as needed and retrieved the Asus Transformer which proved unsuitable to access a Windows VPN in the way it's been set up. It'll still be a superb platform for an on-line file library to make office facilities accessible in any location. Moreover, I get to take it home and figure out how to get it to play with our office system. All this new technology requires a good deal of thinking though to get the most out of it. Just when you've got used to a new way of doing things, another presents itself. For every innovation there are new complications, and everything has to be looked at with total security in mind. So there's never much room for uncritical enthusiasm when making adjustments to the total system.

We got back to Motorpoint car park and unloaded the consignment of radios purchased on our last visit there, all configured ready for use, then it was time to head off to Llandaff in the evening traffic, with just enough time to get to St Michael's for Evensong with the special ceremony to license Fr Mark Clavier as Dean of Residential Training and Dr John Wilks as Director of Post-Graduate Training. The College chapel was packed with visitors and students. I felt very pleased to squeeze on to the end of a pew next to one of my tutees, having discharged my last responsibility as acting Dean by negotiating and producing the service sheet for the occasion.

It went off perfectly and the Archbishop preached in a way that did justice to contemporary biblical understanding of  scripture. It was comforting to have such a positive message 'from the top' in the light of the last term's out-break of fundamentalist dogmatism, attempting to re-fight battles dismissed by the church catholic as irrelevent even before I occupied a pew in this chapel, three generations ago. It's just not good enough. The Church in Wales is a diverse body. But there are limits to diversity. Convictions about the nature of scriptural authority that contradict the freedom which the Gospel Jesus proclaimed are a challenge to everyone to think deeply about what gives confidence, purpose and openness to the journey as His disciples. 

The dynamism of the Gospel and the richness of ways in which it is proclaimed offers both security and freedom to those who follow the way of Jesus - trusting in a living Word, as opposed to a very fixed idea of how God's mystery is to be understood and lived. Launching out into a different way of thinking may be for some a disconcerting exit from their comfort zone, but the blessings are beyond conception.
    

Tech shopping day

Yesterday I determined that after an afternoon in the CBS office preparing documents to circulate for next week's Steering Group meeting, I'd go and buy a new phone on my way home. It's taken me the best part of a year to get used to a touch screen device. It was old technology when I bought it, and now it feels a little slow to the touch, compared to those used by others that I occasionally get to try. However, by the time I'd completed all my tasks, I was too late and had to dash home for supper. 

As Clare had a school AGM to attend this morning, I was able to take advantage of free time and visit the shops. I texted Clare to join me for lunch in town, and had a wander around the John Lewis technology store, in the hope she'd rendezvous there with me, but her meeting ran on late. But, while I was there, I found a bargain Dell Windows 7 Inspiron Duo convertible netbook/tablet, for the office, and had it put aside for later collection when Ashley gets into town. It'll be able to plug a gap in monitoring the network while he is on the move and make for a more efficient service.

I then went to the Orange EE shop in Grand Arcade where thankfully I had little time to wait before buying a Samsung Galaxy Ace II that had commended itself to me from internet reviews and hands-on browsing in stores while fending off the enquiry: 'Are you alright there Sir?' It always takes will-power to resist the rude auto-response: 'What's the matter, do I look unwell or something?' and it wasn't long before I was on my way home for a late lunch. In fact, Clare rang me from home just as I set out. Ironically, the Grand Arcade shops aren't a good place for reception using oldish technology.

The new phone didn't take long to set up, as it's Android Gingerbread version is only a slightly polished update on the one I've become familiar with, but it's much slicker to work with. The sales girl told me that it could be a while before the new phone was activated for use, as the number transfer could take up to twenty four hours, so the old one remains in use until then.

Ashley called twice, but I didn't reach the phone in time. By the time I'd rung him back, he'd just bought the wrong computer, having requested the one set aside in his name in John Lewis', because the counter clerk collected the wrong one from reserved goods section. It's had to understand how this occurred, as the sales person I dealt with had taken to desired item off the shelf, written Ashley's name, company and phone number on the back of the correct 'special offer' price tag, and taken away from the shelf to re-unite with its accessory components. Thankfully he was still on the top floor and only had to re-join the queue and jump up and down bit. He came away with the right piece of kit, a profuse apology and another £20 off the bargain price!

It was too rainy to go out for the rest of the afternoon, so we pottered about instead, and watched the DVD movie of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' together in the evening. It's beautifully filmed, atmospheric, with great attention to detail and an absorbing slow pace. In a way it's quite stagey in the way it moves between several scene locations. Having read the book and seen the BBC original film series and heard the radio version, this seemed less complex, slightly abstracted from the original, and the 'mole' unmasked with not quite with the surprise impact delivered by the others. Oldman plays an impressive inscrutible George Smiley, but Alec Guinness' unimpressive little man portrayal still packs more lasting punch for me. With all its complexities this is one of those stories that characterise the second half of the twentieth century.