Mobile office work stations compared

When the weather is cold, grey and wet, days pass when there seems nothing much to do apart from routine domestic tasks. It's not pleasant enough to go out unless it's strictly necessary, and there's not much to do apart from read the news and feel listless. Thus passed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I went into the office to complete one of my outstanding tasks, and came home with a Microsoft RT Surface to investigate. It had been hanging around for ages doing nothing, as Sarah had acquired it but not found it user friendly, and had tucked away on the common workspace to be found a use or new user. I took the pass-code details, charged it and satisfied myself that it was working properly, and ending up taking it home. 

It's a neat solid device. It starts up quickly and has a decent enough touch screen. It is runs on an Nvidia Tegra chip, as does the Asus Transformer. Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 built for the hardware. It has a version of MS Office, linked to the One Drive cloud file system. This works well, and is easier to work with than the Google Chromebook equivalent. Both are intended to function primarily as mobile office devices for working on documents, spreadsheets, presentations etc. Only after two years of competing production are some Chromebooks acquiring a touchscreen. The Surface is twice the price however. What you pay is what you get. 

The Surface keyboard is one deal breaker, closely followed by limitations of having a single USB port and no card reader in contrast to Chromebooks. If Microsoft had more closely followed the Chromebook hardware specifications it might not have been such a disastrous market flop. As it is, Chromebook sales are growing healthily. Newer hardware designs are of a quality approaching that of the Surface. The Google User interface works reasonably well and has lots of good features, but it's ugly compared to Windows. And in the end, aesthetics as well as functionality make a wholesome working environment, Each has assets and shortcomings. The ideal mobile computing platform would be a blend of the best of both. Good though Android is as a third alternative, it hasn't got email or browser interfaces for touch screen use to the point where you don't lose a precious text draft through an accidental finger swipe. If I use an Android tablet to browse or send emails, I do so distrustfully as a result of bad experiences. 

The Chromebook will continue to travel with me, in preference to the others, as it's so quick to start for use. It's light and has a great keyboard. The awkwardness and relative unfamiliarity of Google's filing system and off-line web apps I can put up with. They'll improve if people moan at them enough.  

Remote control camera

I went to my dentist in Llandaff North yesterday morning, to have a crown fitted to a large back tooth. The filling it replaced was still intact after twenty-five years, but the edges of the tooth itself were getting ragged. The crown covers and protects perfectly although it feels somewhat strange, it's so smooth it feels like having an extra false tooth attached to my jaw.

I decided to wait for a bus to return home as one was conveniently scheduled to arrive within minutes of reaching the bus stop. Needless to stay, it didn't come. The timetable lied, so I had a twenty minute wait. I could have been half way home in that time. Former city centre colleague Alun Tudur, minister of Ebenezer Eglwys Annibynol in Charles Street accosted me at the bus stop, about to visit one of his deacons who lived in a house adjacent to the stop. I haven't seen him for at least a couple of years, since we bumped into each other ourtide the CBS office, which in those days was also in Charles Street. My how time flies.

It was raining today when I drove the car down to N G Motors in Splott for its annual service. I have previously walked or cycled back home or to the office from there, but it was too wet to enjoy the added exercise, so I caught a conveniently arriving eleven bus from Splott Road. This took me to Greyfriars, where I only had to cross the road to pick up one of the Stagecoach out of town buses, the 122, which goes to Tonypandy via Ponyclun via Cathedral Road, close to home. Most convenient.

I had no reason to go out again after my return. I had a briefing to write for office purposes which could be done from home. With time on my hands I decided to install and try out the Sony Playmemories app on my Samsung Galaxy Ace Duo, and on my Asus Transformer, to serve as remote control devices with my Sony HX50. I was impressed with how easy it was to set up and use on both. The large clear preview displayed on the Transformer screen is most helpful in acquiring a desirable photograph.  Now I have to think of situations in which it might be worth the effort to use it. 

I imagine it would be beneficial with the camera on a tripod. To avoid shake when pressing the shutter button on a tripod mounted camera, I have to set the shutter timer to allow the camera to settle from the touch impact of my finger. This remote control app allows for focussing and other adjustments, as well as shutter operation. You can see exactly what you're shooting and don't have to be in line of sight. This is good for shooting shy wildlife. All that remains now is to remember to pack a small tripod and the phone when I take a camera for a walk.
  

Touching adjustment

Thankfully the rain stopped by the time I headed out to Thornhill Crematorium for an early afternoon funeral. Because of the holiday season the bereaved family had to wait seventeen days before they could lay their loved one to rest. Notification of another funeral for next week came in this morning. The death occurred on the same day, but this family will have had to wait twenty six days. How hard it is for anyone, except perhaps the smaller children, to take the usual pleasure in Christmas and New Year while waiting for a final farewell and closure.

Later in the afternoon I went out on another office tech' acquisition trip to Staples and PC World for a smaller more travel portable sized laptop than the one purchased a few days ago for a workstation. Nowhere to be found were any Windows 7 machines, so I had to settle for ordering a Windows 8.1 HP Pavilion with 14" screen which will be home delivered, so that I can set it up without the distractions of work going on around me. It won't be quite the nightmare the last one was, if I've learned from that awful experience, but it will take time to re-trace steps that will give me a setup I can live with. 

This computer will have a touchscreen. Since I started using the Android toting Asus Transformer Infinity with its slick touch interface and keyboard, I've become sufficiently habituated to the basic moves to find myself unwittingly stroking the non-touch screen of my little HP Win 7 laptop. It's going to be interesting to see if I'll get on better with Windows 8.1, designed with touch in mind, than I did on a Windows 8.1 machine that didn't have the touch option. Am I becoming a slower learner, reluctant to change my habits, I wonder?

 

Conferencing in London

Tuesday morning I visited the NHS dentist with whom I am newly registered for a first check-up. Apart from a few minor repairs and the need for a crown on one of my vintage fillings, my teeth are thankfully in fairly decent shape. I now have a couple of appointment for the course of treatment, when I return from Spain.

I went into the office for the afternoon, and after my weekly Chi Gung class headed for London on a late train to attend a Business Crime reduction Partnership conference. I stayed overnight with my sister June, arriving there at nearly midnight, to find the automatic door opening mechanism, repaired that very day was not functioning, due to a mechanical fault caused by installing a new lock. The building management agents are hopelessly inefficient. I wonder how long an effective repair will take?

The Wednesday conference was held at the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, a century old building that started life as a permanent indoor circus, and later became used as a music hall, a theatre and even a night club. It has been renovated and adapted for its new use, restoring lots of its original decorative features. During one of the breaks one of the business partners in the venture chatted to us with enthusiasm about its building in 1900 and its subsequent history. It's one of several fine Edwardian theatres by architect Frank Matcham, a very strictly run gaming house open to the public as long as they behave themselves properly.

Our conference was excellent in that the failures and problems as well as the successes of Partnership working were discussed. It became clear to us that the difficulties Cardiff B.C.R.P. has striven to overcome in the past five years are far from unique. We had a meeting after the meeting with the Operational Director of the Association of Business Crime Partnerships, who was very helpful in his analysis of our situation and in giving us valuable advice. 

I got back to my sister's place at seven. We had supper, then I introduced her to the Samsung Chromebook I'd brought with me for her to try out. It wasn't a success, as the track-pad was too sensitive to control properly for stiff old fingers, and the font size too small for easy reading. She very much liked the ease of access to iPlayer, YouTube and GMail, albeit recent interface changes to GMail make this much less easy to use than the old form she'd gotten used to. It's a nice light machine, but it's clearly not older non technical user friendly. I could see myself on the phone for hours talking her through getting used to it and getting only exasperation as the outcome. So I decided not to leave it with her, and reconfigured it for my own use before packing it for the return journey.

I left London on the train late this morning, and completed my sermon for Sunday en route, using the Asus Transformer which I'd also brought with me, and its Polaris Office suite, for a change. What it can do is quite good, but I still prefer the proper desktop user interface I'm accustomed to, than any interface designed primarily for touch screen users. I don't care if this means I'm stuck in the past. Maintaining productivity is what matters.

Before going home I went into the office for a couple of hours, and as Clare was poorly, went out on my own for my last Tai Chi session until December.

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.
    

Another kind of preparation for study

I woke up an hour earlier than usual with a discussion going on in my head, and couldn't get back to sleep so I got up, prayed and figured out what this was all about. Following a chat with Peter after Matins and breakfast in College, I spent the morning working on a paper to contribute to thinking about preparing incoming students for entry into College, especially in relation to the new Core Skills programme to be taken together by all students whether residential or part timers. This is the vital learning dimension that embraces all kinds of pastoral work, community building and parish ministry placements. It has to sit alongside University studies and relate to life together in a learning community, whether you live in, or come and go. It's complex to organise, essential to get right, and dovetail with academic work. 

I recall from my days in College forty five years ago how often we questioned the relevance of things we were meant to learn. Since then I've found that nothing was wasted, and experience of life and ministry has forged a sense of relevance to all we learned that wasn't there at the time. Many more students nowadays come for training having already established themselves in a career earlier, so they may well make the vital links sooner than I did, though this isn't true of all. 

The wide disparity of life and religious experience of those arriving to study can pose obstacles to personal and community development. It's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of some having long deep roots in the life of the church, and others being adult converts with limited background, even if well versed in a discipleship that reflects their sending church community. I'm keen to find ways to prepare people to engage in their training and bond with each other in ways that make the most of what they are given. This could take some of the strain away from entering into the intense life of a seminarian.

I'd finished writing down my ideas by lunchtime, so I went into the CBS office to work on preparing Ashley's new replacement Asus Transformer, acquired yesterday and left on charge overnight. I stayed longer than intended and missed the evening Eucharist at College. I felt incredibly tired and hungry when  got home, but cooked a paella to launch a very quiet soporific sort of evening. Subdued by my mental exertions early in the day, I had no drive to complete the configuration of apps for the Asus. |It'll just have to wait.

Transformer death

Yesterday, after Eucharist, breakfast and conversations in College, I spent the rest of the morning preparing a sermon for Sunday. Then, after lunch I went down to the CBS office for a few hours of 'tech support' before returning for Evensong, at which Caroline Downes was the preacher. She made superb work of 'Renunciation' in our Lenten series, and clearly relished giving a serious message with occasional flashes of gentle humour. As it was Valentine's day, I walked home via the Llandaff Village Spar mini-market, to buy some flowers for Clare. For once I didn't have to rush home before going out again as I had no Tai Chi class. I was glad of the night in to recover. 

Ashley called me to say his new Asus Transformer Infinity had died since last using it earlier in the week. He thought that battery had drained and that it would no longer re-charge. Hooked up to the mains and switched on, it displayed the Asus logo but nothing more. Another job to do tomorrow.

We slept in, and rose an hour later than usual, all in the name of redressing the sleep deficit, and I went to the CBS office after lunch to meet Ashley and inspect the Asus. Sure enough, the boot up routine began with the logo displayed brightly for a few seconds, giving way to a black screen. No other sign of life. Charging circuit failure? Maybe not, given the brightness of the brief logo show. Maybe not a motherboard failure, as that would rule out the slightest sign of life. A solid state hard disk failure seems likely, so it couldn't load its Android operating system. Such a disappointment.

When I was due to leave for home we went across the road to the John Lewis Store and exchanged it for a refund, since for the moment supplies of this model are rather scanty. We'd still like to have one, as it seems the best choice for our working needs.

It was my turn to cook, and I made an experimental dish with black eyed beans, veg and quinoa. Clare rang to say she was bringing Leila, one of the Steiner teachers, home for supper. They've been working on preparing class rooms for the re-start of school on Monday, following the premises move over half term. We had just the right amount and I was pleased with how my new dish tasted and the approval it got.

  

No tunes to hum on the bus

After another early start and a morning in College yesterday, I went into the CBS office to spend time with Julie our administrator and Jane, our Sage accounts trainer as together they worked at entering financial data from our existing accounts system into the new set up that I've been preparing this past few weeks. I was glad to discover that my work was not in vain, and that it had given them a head start in the work they had to do. Some of the questions I'd raised yesterday got answers, others will get answered in due course. It's a lot of work, but worthwhile for the control and understanding it gives of how the business is moving.

Ashley collected the Asus Tranformer Infinity he'd ordered by phone from John Lewis as soon as we knew supplies had arrived at their warehouse, but we were too busy even to admire it. At the end of the afternoon it came home with me and went on charge overnight.

We went down to the Millennium Centre by bus after an early supper to hear the WNO production of Alban Berg's 'Lulu'. After a tiring week and a challenging day of Q&A about recording anomalies in the old account system, I wasn't much in the mood for going out again, and not looking forward to an evening of avant-garde early 20th century music. Both of us were surprised at how engaging and listenable Berg's richly dissonant orchestral music was, and how powerfully it supported the dramatic action of the story.

Lulu's story is a powerful melodrama, recounted in a theatrically mannered way, of a femme fatale, whom men and women fall helplessly in love with, yet she admits she doesn't know what love is or if God exists or matters. She's not like a spider that consumes its mate, yet those enamoured of her end up dead. She does evil things in order to survive, but seems enmeshed in a web of relationships which she accepts as if inevitable, although they lead to her eventual demise. There's a good deal of sex and sexuality in it, but not a hint of the 'redemptive' procreativity of which the Old Testament scripture speaks. 

It's about a woman whose downfall is determined by the desirability of her body, quite a philosophical reflection to arise from a few decades before the social critique of late 20th century feminism. I'd have loved to take a group of students to see it, just to see what kind of discussion would emerge afterwards. We came away feeling refreshed, stimulated to deep thought, even if there were no tunes to hum on the bus going home.

This morning I spent configuring Ashley's Asus ready for use and took it into the office for him. It was all locked and quiet with no Big Match on this weekend. Clare and I met up at the bus station afterwards and went to Penarth for lunch. It was too grey and damp to go for a walk, so we returned to town and did some shopping before heading home for a quiet evening, getting ready for Sunday and the week ahead, also browsing over next year's WNO brochure to consider what operas we want to book ahead for. In 2014 they have several operas grouped in themes, one of which is 'Faith', featuring Verdi 'Nabucco' and Schoenberg's 'Moses & Aaron'. Music and God, without going to church! Whatever next?

A taste of Palestine

The only Methodist student remaining in College, Cath, who's in my tutur group, led us in Morning Prayer from the Methodist service book this morning - a refreshing change. I didn't plan to work for long after breakfast, but there was enough new stuff to last me several hours.  I also received email from the Team Viewer software company in Germany, aware of the antics of software scammers mis-using their freely available product to access people's computers for no good purpose. They cannot easily prevent a few from doing this as free availability of their product is a channel for them to make known and offer paid service, support and business software licenses around the world. 

The message was a response to the one I sent them reporting what I found on my sister's laptop. It described how to recognise the modus operandii of several common scam enterprises, and who to contact to spread the word when there's an outbreak. If a pattern of fraudulent sales is detectable, the internet financial service provider processing the transaction will be contacted with a request to deny the misuser banking access. It's complex, but not impossible to tackle the problem, as long as people know what's happening and bother to co-operate.

After  lunch at home I was driven to Thornhill Crematorium for the funeral of a sixty year old who'd died of drink - an occupational hazard of those who've worked in the licensing trade. A friend gave a brief and respectful tribute that didn't mention alcoholism as such, but wrly referred to his genial optimism saying: "With him, the glass was never half empty, it was always full." Afterwards, I was dropped off at College in good time to complete my morning tasks before the Eucharist started. 

In giving out a few notices before the service, senior student Lorraine mentioned that the wine to be used came from a bottle Tom and Sam brought back from their pre-term Holy Land visit to Cana in Galilee. Sam raised a smile declaring "It was water when we left!"  That tiny sip of suntanned Holy Land Merlot instead of the fruity Port ordinarily used for Communion was special - the smallest taste of land in which the Lord walked. "I didn't know how much water to add." Lorraine exclaimed afterwards. Instinct guided her, nevertheless - just a few symbolic drops for the commixture. As Port is so much stronger, it can take dilution without losing character.

I didn't get into the CBS office today, but Ashly and I were on the phone for an hour dealing with the details of decisions needing to be made. He's still chasing after an Asus Transformer Infinity to use on his rounds, and maybe at last has tracked the rare best down.  A great product, but the marketing and delivery of supplies is very poor. You'd think a product as slick as the iPad and more versatile would merit more competitive promotion, but at the moment the company seems to be playing it as a best kept secret and letting word of mouth do the rest.

    

Not a dull Sunday

I drove up the A470 early again this morning for another visit to Abercanaid to celebrate the Eucharist. Although there was a layer of cloud just above the heights of the Taff Vale it didn't drain the landscape of its rich saturated colours. A joy to behold. My arrival brought a surprise. Another priest had arrived ahead of me, only to discover he wasn't expected, but that I was. A communications mix up between Area Dean and Archdeacon, apparently. Too many cooks I wonder? With so many vacancies to manage it must be a nightmare organising cover.

I met Clare from St Catherine's and we went to the Riverside market to shop for veggies, cheese and now olives of several varieties from a specialist stall. We chatted to the guy who runs the Cothi Valley goat cheese stall, discussing the economics of developing different kinds of cheeses from the same input of milk. Would that Wales had a banking culture that could store food assets the way happens in France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain, where quality products are used as collateral for development loans.

Clare had afternoon and evening engagements, so I spent the rest of the day finishing the transfer of the CBS dataset to the Sage Accounts package, emailing people about College business. Ashley and I spent a good while figuring out by text message and phone calls how best to buy an Asus Transformer Infinity tablet computer with a keyboard docking station, which he could use to remote access the SafetyNet server, and also use as an account file repository when visiting RadioNet users. 

We've been mulling over this problem for quite some time, but finally a piece of kit has come up which fits the bill - and it's darned hard to find out who's got them in stock. The trouble is, neither of us are particularly keen about shopping on-line, and would rather talk to a sales person face to face, and that limits what we can easily get done.

A quiet sort of Sunday, and despite some dull routine stuff to get done, few dull moments.