16 Feb 2005
Just because it sounds funny and I would like to confuse anyone that has the slightest interest in my Blog, I have decided to call my Mini, Mac after my Mac mini!! Having clarified that point to save any confusion, it would now be appropriate for me to complain again about Mac, he is leaking oil in very small quantities. After all of the problems I have had with him (mainly due to very shoddy work from St Martins Garage), I really feel that soon enough, he will be running great!! It’s not all bad though as I have discovered that he can do about 10 miles on just the smell of petrol… good work Mac, saved me having to push!! As it is related, I should mention that I am also getting on very well with my Mac mini, less problems than the Mini, Mac so far… not hard as I would already have had to give it to the computer garage for 6 weeks so they break the DVD-ROM drive for me.
14 Feb 2005
I am sitting in silence and typing this post. I can hear the wind outside my window which is a novelty for me as I usually only hear the wind blowing from my Coolermaster PC case!! I have spent a day with my new Mac mini and so far I am absolutely stunned with it. The performance out of the box is not too bad at all, it runs silently, the graphics system is surprisingly powerful, it has not crashed once and it looks cool as heck!! I am so very pleased that I spent this small amount of money as I can honestly say I love this computer already… it really is paving the way for a Power Mac. I bought the 1.42Ghz version that has the standard 256MB RAM which I plan to upgrade to 1GB soon!!! So far it has done everything I have asked, playing DVD’s is excellent, the quality of the movies is great but the lack of any discernible noise really makes a lot of difference. I am not even going to start with my comments of the operating system as I am far too pleased with it at the moment and I do not want to be too biased towards the computing platform that I mocked for most of my computing life!! It would seem that I have joined the elitist ranks of Apple ownership and it looks like my theory was correct… Mac’s are cool 
!!!
09 Feb 2005
I have written a small article about NMEA and our plans for installing a Multiplexer on Mystere. If you are interested in these… head over to thesailingbug.com and have a look. This is a subject which I am learning about and so I put this together to try and clarify a few things to myself. If anyone else finds it interesting or useful then great!!
07 Feb 2005
**Leigh’s notes on things that need to be done before sailing on Mystere
**
Open up and switch on the battery switch in aft cabin to provide power to instrumentation and stereo.
Switch on the stereo and get the tunes going!
Remove dehumidifier and the power lead from the back of the boat to the shore supply.
Lay out headsail sheet ropes making sure that they run through the cars along the side of the boat.
Lay out the spinnaker ropes routing them through the blocks at the rear corners of the boat and with the clip attached to the bow. Make sure that the ropes go around the outside of the mast.
Remove the outboard fuel tank and the life ring from the aft locker. Fit the life ring to the cage on the rear of the boat making sure to loop the string over the GPS aerial.
Drop the engine into the water by flicking the lever on the starboard side of the engine to the horizontal position and then tilt the engine forwards and then lower backwards to put it into a vertical position. Next lower the engine into the water by pulling the black clip upwards on the metal support rig for the engine and carefully lower into place until it locks in position. Make sure that the rope is securely tied around the base of the motor above the propeller and pulled tight and locked off.
Connect up the fuel tank to the outboard.
Bring the head sail on board and place on the foredeck. Locate the top of the headsail and feed through the roller and then up into the “tuff luff”. Connect the halyard to the top of the sail. Attach the base of the head sail to the clip on the front of the foredeck.
Locate the “insert technical word for corner of headsail where the sheets attach here” and tie on the sheets using a bowline. Try to minimise the amount of “tail” on the bowline to keep it tidy.
Bring the main sail on board and feed the runner along the base of the boom. Unclip the sail ties and unroll the main sail over the boom. Feed the runners on the edge of the main sail down the channel in the mast. Once complete fix the mast plate over the entrance to the channel. Clip the mainsail halyard onto the top of the mainsail and take up the slack. Fold the mainsail over the boom and hold in place with sail ties until it is ready to be hoisted.
Attach the outhaul to the end of the main sail and tighten accordingly.
Attach the Cunningham to the mainsail (may have to wait until the main is hoisted though).
Start to outboard and leave running.
Remove covers from the instrumentation on deck and attach the fabric pouches to the deck and bring out winch.
03 Feb 2005
Finally got around to enrolling on the Yachtmaster course I have been wanting to do for some time now. I have decided to do it via correspondence with the NMCS. Apparently it is possible to complete in 4 weeks but I am looking at more like 6 months as I plan to spread it out a bit. Leigh is doing a Coastal Cruising course that includes Day Skipper, Yachtmaster and some other interesting modules. We are currently planning to get together for a study session each week! Leigh’s blog is more likely to detail our progression as ‘Study Buddies’ 
Here’s to education! My course consists of 18 modules and his is 31 which gives some indication of how much more he will have the opportunity to learn. The only reason I didn’t sign up aswell for that course, is that I already have the Day Skipper certificate and did not want to repeat too much!
31 Jan 2005
Scientific testing has proven that you can was and dry and entire classic Mini in less time than it takes to clean an 18 inch wheel on a Golf GTi. This leads me further to suspect that the Mini can be completely polished, cleaned inside and a coffee break completed by the time the last 3 wheels have been washed. As I live in a dusty lane I have to further conclude that by the time the Golf has been washed and dried, the Mini will again be muddy and in need of a wash.
31 Jan 2005
At some stage in the future, it is my aim to take some time from the hustle and bustle of modern living, and venture out onto the ocean so that I can spend some time visiting the far off shores of tropical islands and experiencing a life of freedom in more pleasing climates than I am currently situated. The emporer stated that ‘The lure of adventure and exploration is strong in this one’ and I would have to agree. This impulse is now higher in my priorities, especially as I nearly got electrocuted through a dodgy socket near my foot and I am forced to realise that my time may end at any time!
My friend Leigh has started a website to document the preperation and plans for this trip starting from our current position… i.e Square one! If you are interested in what is going on… visit thesailingbug.com and keep up with where we are in our plans and how we go about preparing for the real ‘trip of a lifetime’!!!
28 Jan 2005
About a year ago, I purchased the iMatch Image database to catalogue my collection of photos and hopefully allow me to find a particular image quicker. The application is very powerful and completely exceeds my requirements as I dont have enough time to learn about the advanced features. I am sure I have a number of uses for the scripting language it supports, but I have no idea how to use it. The biggest feature that I have wanted to use is the categories view. An image can be assigned to multiple categories that you will have decided upon. I have opted for location, type of image, what and who is in the image.
Yesterday I completed the categorisation of every single photo. I can now click on ‘Mystere’ and see all of the pictures of the boat. I can click on ‘Shane’ and see all photos that have me in them. To further this, I can combine these and select ‘Mystere’ and ‘Shane’ to see all pictures of me on the boat.
I have calculated that the images have an average of 4 categories assigned to them, as I have 4200+ photos, that equates to more than 16,000 checkboxes ticked!! I am off out now to buy a new mouse as my left button has melted!!
19 Jan 2005
With the 3 new projects I am about to embark on in one sweep, I thought I should get my affairs into order first. As my time developing this site will be restricted for a number of weeks, I decided to fix a couple of CSS and design issues I had. The most challenging thing I finally got fixed was a problem with overlapping floats. If I posted a picture into a small amount of text, it would overlap into the next post and shift the text fouling my layout. I was prompted to take action on this as it was an instant issue on my Videos page! This is now fixed as you can see in the post about the Curta below… the box is the height of the image. I believe that my fix will work in all known browsers which is a plus although I have only tested in Firefox and IE. The step back was when I had made my changes and I cut all the text from the Curta post to try the solution… problem was that I then went and cut & pasted some more code and lost all of the original text… nightmare 
! Luckily I was able to write a more concise posting without fear of the image ending up half inside the Tickle-me-Laserjet post!
The other thing I have got around to is the style of the comments which was standard before. As I have just implemented Gravatars into the site… I thought I should sort out the formatting. I am now pleased with the style of this area… leave some comments to try it out!!
19 Jan 2005
This is my new car! Its a Tahiti Blue, Mini Cooper Sport and boasts a 1.3 litre multi-point injection engine! I am quite sure we will be hearing lots about the fun and hassles I will be having with this British icon so I have created a new category for it! It has no name yet… Monty was suggested but do any of you have any good ideas!?!?