Category: blog
Solar Maximum and Minimum Thermometer
A cheap Solar powered maximum and minimum thermometer.
Archlinux Mail Server
Setting up a mail server on Archlinux with virtual users. Using Postfix, Dovecot, SASL, postgrey, Roundcube and mailgraph.
Glyders Wild Camp (Photos).
Photos from My Tryfan Scramble and Glyders Camping Trip.
Glyders Wild Camp
Scramble on the west face of Tryfan and a Wild Camp on the Glyders.
Carneddeau Summit Camp
Camping near the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn.
Exped Synmat Ultralite
Comparison of the Exped Synmat Ultralite and the Thermarest Neoair
Wild Country Zephyros 2 on Moel Siabod
First outing for the new tent on a windy wild camp on Moel Siabod.
Inov8 Roclite 295 Trail Shoes.
A new pair of shoes for general wear and mountain walking.
Adventures in KVM Land
Moving my virtual machines from Xen on Debian to KVM on Ubuntu.
New Thermos Flasks
The Thermos Ultimate really does keep your drink hot all day.
February Climb on Tryfan Bach
Climbing with the children on Tryfan Bach.
Ortlieb Map Case.
A review of the Ortlieb map case. Made from flexible and very strong material
Alpkit Gamma Headtorch
Review of the Alpkit Gamma.
Backpacking in Wales by Showell Styles
A review of Showell Styles Backpacking in Wales.
Lowe Alpine Cap vs Trekmates Ice GTX Cap
Comparison of the Lowe Alpine Mountain Cap, Trekmates Ice Cap and Paramo Cap.
New Earphones
New earphones to replace my old pair that failed after only a year.
Nokia C6-01 Smartphone.
My new smartphone, a replacement for my Nokia 5800.
Approx
Shorewall Firewall, Squid and Privoxy Proxies.
Moving to a new firewall. Installing Squid 3.0 and Privoxy.
Casio Protrek Triple Sensor Watch
Review of the Casio Protrek triple sensor watch.
Hammock.
Lightweight silk hammock made from parachute silk from Backpackinglight.
Meindl Softline Ultra Boots
A new pair of walking boots.
Osprey Talon 33 Rucksack
A lightweight sack suitable for day/alpine use. An excellent replacement for my old Karrimor Hot Ice rucksack.
Montane Terra Pants.
Montane Terras are lightweight walking-climbing trousers, with several neat features.
pfSense Firewall.
Setting up a pfSense with 1:1 NAT using an ADSL router in bridged mode.
Bryn Tyrch Hotel, Capel Curig.
The Bryn Tyrch in Capel Curig, a family friendly hotel with a high standard of accommodation and good food.
A Traverse of the Glyders from Capel Curig to Nant Peris.
A traverse of the Glyders from Capel Curig to Nant Peris.
Disqus Commenting System.
Trying out a new commenting system.
Mammut Champ Trousers.
For a few years I have worn Craghopper Kiwi trousers almost all the time. I am in the lucky position of being able to wear whatever I want most of the time, so I tend to choose clothes that are both practical and I feel comfortable in.
Review - Rab Generator Smock.
In the last couple of months I have been buying some new walking/climbing gear. Quite a bit of my outdoor clothing is getting rather battered and worn out (a bit like me). In the past I have used a tee shirt/fleece/Goretex jacket layering system.
Moel Famau
I had passed the Clwydian range hundreds of times on the way to Snowdonia, but I had never climbed any of its hills. Amongst other things the hills are famous for the range of iron Age hill forts, with six forts along the crest of the ridge. The crest of the ridge is heather moorland and Offa's Dyke path follows almost the entire ridge.
Bothy Bags.
I have only recently discovered bothy bags. For many years I have been carrying round my Wild Country Goretex bivvy bag in the winter time. I have used it many times for planned bivvies and a few times for unplanned ones.
Jodrell Bank.
We don't live very far from the radio telescope at [[http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/][Jodrell Bank]]. The last time I visited was more than 10 years ago. However, yesterday our two girls were taking part in a gym competition very close to the telescope, so I took my son to have a look round.
Model Helicopter
Having three young children is always a useful excuse for buying new toys. Last week I was looking around our local model shop and the owner was flying a small twin rotor plastic helicopter around the shop. Anyway I couldn't resist and ended up buying one.
Proporta Gadget Bag.
A review of the Proporta Gadget Bag.
ADSL Connection Problems.
Some time ago I upgraded my ADSL to ADSL Max. This worked very well indeed for quite a long time. However, several months ago I noticed that my Zyxel 660H D1 router kept disconnecting, sometimes for several minutes. I have tried all the usual things like disconnecting everything else on the phone line. My router is already plugged into BT's master socket, so it isn't dodgy internal wiring and I have tried a Netgear router which showed the same symptoms. [[%5B%5Bhttp://www.wizards.co.uk][Wizards]] my ISP were very helpful, but we couldn't really pin down the problem. The next step would be to get BT to test the line. However, if they can't find a fault they charge you £169 for the privilege of testing your line. Given that the fault was intermittent, it's quite likely that they wouldn't find anything wrong.