Peace of mind for valuables at the gym

I have for some time been concerned about leaving valuables in the locker at my gym (DW Fitness) – not specifically because of any problems reported at the branches I use but because lockers in such locations are clearly vulnerable and there have been reports of gyms being targeted by thieving gangs.

There are not many portable lock boxes with movement alarms around. Frankly, this is the only one I found that looked at all substantial in the UK. It is the Xitel mySAFE. 

I purchased two, one for myself and one for my wife. Not at the Amazon price of over £70 though: I bought from SCAN at £45 inc VAT each but I see they are no longer available from SCAN. So, are they worth the higher price …

Bottom line: I use mine every visit to the gym, it takes me seconds to use, has never gone off accidentally when knocked, has gone off when someone moved it (without realising) and alerted everyone in the gym, fits into the locker easily (in front of my shoes) and comfortably holds my wallet, car keys, money, and an iPhone as well as a few other odds and ends.

When I first received the two units, I had problems with one of them. It turned out that the supplied batteries were poor with one of the units.

The box is pretty solid. It is not a safe though. If someone gets hold of this and removes it from the deposited location, then they are going to get into it without any trouble (a screwdriver and hammer should do the trick). From my point of view, the box:

1) prevents the opportunist just grabbing a small valuable item whilst your back is turned;

2) makes removal of the box from a reasonably public location impractical – too noisy.

It has TWO locks: a physical three digit combination lock. Once turned, the box cannot be opened without tools/force/violence.

A movement sensor lock, which uses a 4 to 6 length pin entered on a 3 digit pad (nos 1, 2, 3). Once set, movement will cause the reasonably loud alarm to go off and it will only end when the correct pin is re-entered. There are alarm settings to choose how the alarm is triggered: instant alarm if moved or alarm only if movement continuous for a short period are the settings I use (there are others). The former is handy if you have larger valuable items in the locker that you want to protect by putting the box in front/on them. I mostly use the second setting so I can move it / knock it a little when putting things in/out of the locker.

Obviously, the two locks can be set to codes of your choice.

Clearly, a 3 digit lock and a 4-6 digit code alarm from the numbers 1,2,3 is not going to win any security awards. These are trivial to crack. That is not the point. The point is that there is no opportunity for a thief to crack the codes if used in appropriate locations. So, a beach, poolside, gym are all appropriate uses. A hotel room is probably not (although given that hotel room safes are almost completely useless, it might help) – too isolated, box can be smothered, opened violently and the alarm silenced. I have used it for extra protection in a busy car park (don't forget to turn off alarm before driving away). You can even use it just as a movement alarm to help protect your bag at the pub (a common laptop theft location) – although it is a bit large for that.

Note that there are small cut-outs in the box to allow charging or security cables to be passed through the box.

I would be tempted even at the higher price. It gives me considerable peace of mind.

Solving the ecommerce home delivery problem for online shoppers

I am really glad to have tried out ByBoxUk and will be signing up for the annual plan (less than £1 per week) shortly as it solves a key home delivery problem for me.

The likes of Home Delivery Network (now called Yodel) are very unreliable for home deliveries in my experience, delivering at strange times, being difficult to contact, hard to track, handling goods poorly at times, and certainly reporting delivery attempts that do not seem to fit with my observations.

Like most people with busy working lives, I have no idea when I or someone else might be in at home and able to take a delivery. Even though my home is a large and busy property, often people there are too busy themselves to hear or respond to a knock on the door (particularly if it is a half-hearted attempt to attract attention).

The ByBox solution gives me an alternative delivery address. It is provided by one of the very delivery companies I have a problem with, but as it accepts store deliveries to a major central hub delivery location fully staffed and operationally efficient at goods receipting, it is an easy drop off point for whoever the store has contracted to do deliveries.

From that drop off point, the item(s) are then re-delivered to my drop box, a pin-code protected locker located on a major retail site near my home which I can visit 24×7. This drop off point is again easy for the delivery drivers to locate and use. The lockers come in banks of various sizes, and whichever locker is free and fits the goods is used. The correct locker door opens automatically when I or my wife arrives and enters the delivery specific code that has been SMSes and emailed to me and my wife.

This approach adds an extra day to deliveries, so it now takes me two days instead of one day for most deliveries. Or rather, in most cases, it means I get to receive my goods sooner, as I do not have to arrange, and re-arrange second/third delivery attempts or visit the delivery courier's local hub at their convenience to make a collection.

It has worked out very well for me on the run-up to Christmas, and I recommend it to all.

Solving the ecommerce home delivery problem for online shoppers

I am really glad to have tried out ByBoxUk and will be signing up for the annual plan (less than £1 per week) shortly as it solves a key home delivery problem for me.

The likes of Home Delivery Network (now called Yodel) are very unreliable for home deliveries in my experience, delivering at strange times, being difficult to contact, hard to track, handling goods poorly at times, and certainly reporting delivery attempts that do not seem to fit with my observations.

Like most people with busy working lives, I have no idea when I or someone else might be in at home and able to take a delivery. Even though my home is a large and busy property, often people there are too busy themselves to hear or respond to a knock on the door (particularly if it is a half-hearted attempt to attract attention).

The ByBox solution gives me an alternative delivery address. It is provided by one of the very delivery companies I have a problem with, but as it accepts store deliveries to a major central hub delivery location fully staffed and operationally efficient at goods receipting, it is an easy drop off point for whoever the store has contracted to do deliveries.

From that drop off point, the item(s) are then re-delivered to my drop box, a pin-code protected locker located on a major retail site near my home which I can visit 24×7. This drop off point is again easy for the delivery drivers to locate and use. The lockers come in banks of various sizes, and whichever locker is free and fits the goods is used. The correct locker door opens automatically when I or my wife arrives and enters the delivery specific code that has been SMSes and emailed to me and my wife.

This approach adds an extra day to deliveries, so it now takes me two days instead of one day for most deliveries. Or rather, in most cases, it means I get to receive my goods sooner, as I do not have to arrange, and re-arrange second/third delivery attempts or visit the delivery courier's local hub at their convenience to make a collection.

It has worked out very well for me on the run-up to Christmas, and I recommend it to all.

Second go at university for my eldest daughter

I cannot begin to imagine the feelings one has to deal with when facing starting again at a university one year on from having started elsewhere only to have subsequently dropped out.

When the first university was Keele, and the second is Imperial College, the feelings must be even more strange. There cannot be many students who have chosen to have gone to Keele in the first instance, dropped out and then manage to gain a seat in one of the top universities in the country.

Zoë took the decision originally to go to Keele to study Geology on the grounds that it is:

• not in a city
• benefits from a large, green campus (largest in Europe)
• close to home

She really is not into the things most readily associated with teenage girlhood such as partying, shopping, drinking, dancing, clothes, make-up, etc.

By sheer coincidence, her mother (and my wife, I am pleased to say), Lucy, started at the same university at the same time, but studying physiotherapy and commuting daily rather than living on campus. As my wife looks rather too young (and it is not just me saying that) to have a daughter at university (let alone two), introductions to friends and student colleagues from time to time of the daughter/parent were entertaining.

Unfortunately, Keele turned out to be a big mistake. This was clearly something though that she had to find out for herself. She was studying Geology and, frankly, the entrance requirements at Keele were not especially high, so not many of the fellow students were not particularly studiuos and given that Keele is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, then parties were the order of the day for many of the young resident students. On top of this, the work was easy, lectures often disrupted, the university inefficient in marking and feeding back on work and she was frustrated and bored. She dropped out after the first term. An entertaining Christmas.

Several universities were contacted, some responded and were open to allowing her to transfer there and then. Imperial invited her to an interview, which she smashed, brilliantly. The tour of the facilities and briefings on the their approach were stunning. For example, the School of Mines had just replaced all the PCs used by the students in that department with the latest specification machines and had sufficient for one for each student – no competing with other departments. Unlike Keele, they commit to turning around marks quickly, typically within two weeks and often quicker, much better for learning.

Clearly, Imperial meets non of the original criteria. However, given it is a complete nerdfest, the vast majority of students are not that into partying, it has has the select and largely beautiful South Kensignton as its home, and is surrounded by interesting public venues such as the Natural History Musuem (a place she loves). She even managed to get accomodation in the halls pretty much next door (overlooking a nice green) which are cheaper than Keele’s thanks to room sharing arrangements.

I have driven in and through London a good number of times over the years, never been a fan though. Was not too worried about moving her in last October. The university had a slick system in place. You could pull up outside the halls for around 15 minutes for unpacking, bu they had an army of well organised students to unpack your car and place stuff outside of the appropriate rooms and they gave you a parking pass covering a couple of hours for their main campus car park for after the drop off.,

Leaving South Kensington on a warm Saturday October evening was pretty much a nightmare. Whereas I had driven in in the morning with ease, a smooth journey with few holds up; in the evening, getting out to the M4 took hours with most of it sat in traffic jams moving a car length every now and then, with odd emergency vehicle light ablaze negotiating a course through from time to time. Rather than head back to Shropshire though, my wife and I headed to Swansea, and even longer trip. I did not want to drive back home on the Saturday evening though to have to then do another long drive to get to Swansea for work on Monday morning.

We have a nice evening and morning in Swansea. In the afternoon, I did a hostage style exchange of my wife at a large supermarket on the outskirts of Cardiff to her fellow student who lives in Cardiff and lodges at our home during the week.

Zoë did not come home at all during her first term at Imperial. She knows of some other 1st year students, also from our region, who returned regularly. She wanted to prove to herself she could settle into life in halls in London and not need to visit home. By contrast, when at Keele, she visited regularly (but then her mother was travelling back and forth daily).

I did wonder if on her return for the Christmas break, one year after dropping out of Keele, she would have problems. Well, she did. Absolutely standard student anxieties about displacement (where is home, etc). No worries about whether or not she had made the right decision. She was certainly no longer bored, and being surrounded by many very intelligent types no longer felt over qualified. After a few days rest on first getting home, she spent most of Christmas with her head deep in her books, creating mind-maps, and burning up the midnight oil rewriting notes. This in preparation for an exam immediately on her return.

My wife also has spent most of Christmas revising.

Alexandra, by contrast, also back home for Christmas, on a course where such fact-based revision is not really valid, has been able to get out and about an enjoy herself a lot more.

Seeking the work of others for inspiration

There are times when photograph inspire, times when they just encourage you to give up with no hope of ever getting any good, and other times when you just sit back and enjoy. Fortunately, Trey Ratcliff’s work often falls into the later camp and stuckincustomers.com is one of the best sites on the web for photographers.

Amazon book reviews and the average reader

I do find it amazing how many book reviews on Amazon claim that the book isn't for the average reader. To quote from my recent comment on this: 

I do wonder who this "average" reader is that anyone posting on these feedbacks seems to consider themselves to be above.

My guess, and it is no more than that (I have no reliable information on "average" reading abilities in USA or UK) is that the vast majority of basically educated people in the developed world with some secular religious education who use a kindle are probably perfectly capable of reading and understanding this book, it is not after all an academic tomb, especially with wikipedia and the like but a click or two away to fill in some background.

Living in a flat v. living in a hotel

All of my assignments since joining PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting over ten years ago (most of which have been with IBM of course since PwC sold their consulting business) has seen me living in hotels at least three nights most working weeks. Until my last assignment that is. For the last two and a bit years, I have been able to reside in a flat rented on the Marina in Swansea (the photograph shows my view from the patio doors of my flat).

Now, whilst Swansea would not be my first choice of a second home, it is no where near as bad as so many make it out to be. This view might be coloured that by the relief of being able to live in a flat. Some people prefer hotel living, not wanting the hassle of a second home to sort out (you have to rent in your own name and pay all the bills associated with such a property), but I liked it on several grounds:

1. cooking – no more hotel food, mostly unhealthy and certainly boring after the second time through the menu;
2. clothes – I can leave things around, no need to clear everything out every week, and stay an extra night with no hassle;
3. freedom – able to live as I wish, including watching programs of my choice.

I am sure that it is no coincidence that my improvements in health, considerable weight loss, and general all-round wellness brought about over the last year have been in large part down to living in a flat rather than a hotel.

The flat has also been the source of a few cheap holidays. Several times, I took some time off work and had my wife stay with me in the flat. Occasionally, my daughters have also joined me. We have enjoyed travling around the area. The photograph shows an over the top painterly effect tone mapping of an HDR shot overlooking Langland Bay in the Gower near Swansea. Light was not promising so decided to have a play as I was not going to be able to get a nicely lit landscape. Another time maybe (or maybe not, now).

The flat was around 5 miles from the client location, but IBM ran a free bus service, and there were lots of public bus services near by. I tend not to get on well with buses, especially small old buses with poor suspension. I often felt sick, so mostly drove in each day. Not very environmentally friendly, I know. I did switch to a Prius part way through the assignment though. Once I started going to the gym regularly after Easter 2011, I had to take the car anyway as the gym I used was no where near the flat and I wanted to go there directly from work.

It was good living in a city, although it felt rather too small to be called a city. Must be a Welsh thing. Reasonable dining around, plenty of entertainment (including theatres, comedy clubs, and cinemas) and, of course, plenty of shops. There are a good few museums and art galleries as well, which I confess to having mostly ignored.

The next assignment will no doubt see me living in a hotel again, at least for a while. I think I can now survive a Marriott/Hilton again for a bit and will do no harm to restock the hotel points for family convenience. Hope I can get a flat again though.

The end of the long commute and audio book experience

I recently came the end of a long term assignment that had me travelling to Swansea every week and living in a flat three, four and sometime five nights a week. The drive at the beginning and end of the week was somewhat draining as it took at least three hours, more usually four allowing for a break and sometimes, when very tired or weather bad, five or more. Typically I drove down on a Monday morning in time to get started at 10am and left on a Thursday around 4pm.

I am not sorry to have come to the end of my commute. Of course, my next assignment might be worse. Fingers crossed that it will not be.

Years ago, I pretty much always preferred to travel by train. Problems with my back meant that this became impractical as the carrying of a suitcase and work bags, not least transferring between platforms, was not viable. These days, my back is a lot stronger thanks to finally getting into a gym habit but there was no practical service to Swansea. I am hopeful that might next assignment is convenient for train travel. A short drive to Stafford station and then a comfortable journey on the train where I can get some work done will be most welcome.

Thank goodness for Amazon's audible book service. I have devoured a huge variety of books from classics, sci-fiction, thrillers, biographies to psychology studies. I started on the monthly plan @ £15 per month which gives two book credits, and a credit can be used to buy pretty much any book regardless of length or standard price. Most of the books I go for are over 10 hours long (I try to avoid abridged works). I listened to the entire, and superb, Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (sadly, late) series on these commutes. I admit, there have been times when I realised I had failed to listen properly to sections when driving took more of my attention, but overall I have to say this is a brilliant way of reading books. Most of the readers are amazing, most of them are actors. The range of voices, subtle rather than comic, that they can bring so that in both tone, pacing, accent, etc the characters become very distinct, is incredible and really makes for a grand experience. Particularly impressive is when women or men are voicing the opposite gender and it not being odd in anyway.

One set of books I read, starting with WWW:Watch, by Robert J. Sawyer, was unusual in having five narrators. The narrators did not play individual characters but rather read from the point of view of particular characters, which mean each narrator had to voice all of the characters. The amazing thing was, whichever narrator was reading, you immediately recognised the character that was speaking as they had agreed on how to express each voice. Clearly, the women's voices were overall higher than the mens' but it made no difference. Amazing.

I suspect I shall go through fewer books now, may need to revert to the one book a month plan. You never know though.

Laundry lid

I have just bought an iPhone 4S, not because I was unhappy with my 3GS in any way but because my other half needed to replace her faulty 3GS and the most cost effective way of doing this was to buy a new phone through work with a substantial discount and corporate pricing. As expected, the phone does everything the old phone did but just a little bit faster in a way that does not matter much. The exception is the difference in camera quality, the new phone having far superior capabilities. Given that I am a photographer, this is clearly of interest to me. Here is my first photo,a very simple image with minor tweaking on the phone before posting. Impressive I think.

whatever happened to Buzz Out Loud

I am an avid podcast listener, primarily following technology and photography shows plus a wide range of BBC offerings as well. For a long time, one of my favourite podcasts was Buzz Out Loud from CNET which helped me keep up with the tech news in an entertaining but informative way.

I really liked the team on the show of Tom Merritt, Molly Wood and Jason Howell but Tom moved on to create a new show with TWiT called Tech News Today and after a while Jason joined him.  Tom was replaced on BOL by Rafe Needleman who I never really took to but he was subsequently replaced by Brian Tong who, frankly, I find infantile. He seems to have corrupted Molly Wood as well as together the show became almost slapstick and the new content, for me, dropped off dramatically. Recently, the show has gone from being daily to weekly (and it also seemed to have dropped any sponsorship – although oddly the breaks with music leads in and out were still in). No great surprise. TNT remains a daily show, with good sponsorship.

No doubt, Brian is a good journalist, but I just do not like the combination of him and Molly together. Perhaps things will change in the weekly format and BOL will recover its original journalistic integrity and entertainment mix.