Chapter 9 – Update September 2024

September 2024

It has been a while since I posted here, probably for all the usual reasons. RL has been busy and I was away for 2 and a bit weeks in the summer. The job front has also got a few changes on the horizon which I can explain later when they are more official.

The devenir gris website:

This website has been up and running since 2019. I feel that there is definitely a need to update and revise various parts of it (e.g. Travel and weather page) and generally make things easier to find. Particularly the travel and weather page was something I felt could be useful for motorcyclists or any other travellers really in 2019 but doesn’t appear to fill any useful gaps at the moment as this functionality is available on pretty much all modern phones and almost everyone travels with one. Thus, I am considering scrapping that or doing a radical revision.

The travel and weather page

A useful page with weather maps and other handy information for travellers particularly motorcyclists. Stamen map by OSM Wind map with isobars and pressure by https://windy.com Rain/Precipitation map by openweathermap Temperature map by openweathermap Terrain overview Routeplanner with traffic density and road-works with thanks to https://wf.fsoft.com/ for the overview of weather stations I am working on implementation of an overview map with local traffic density and flow and well as good local motorcycling routes but am not quite there yet. For the time being I have a quite useful ressource with maps (by mapbox) including current traffic and road-works from […]

I had briefly toyed with the idea of leaving wordpress and trying something like 11ty but need to first have a play with 11ty to see if I can do it. This is not at all to do with my wordpress install but more to do with a general feeling of bloataceousness and a desire to strip things back down to the basics. There are definite parallels with “chopping” a motorcycle i.e. reducing something to the bare essentials 😊.

General gripe about the modern internet:

I have also been musing about the internet in general and find myself often happier without it than with it so I may try exploring this theme in a post. Some parts of it are, of course, very useful but I do often harbour a yearning for retro-websites created in html with real people behind them and early days of ebay when you could still find real bargains and generally more people contacts and pleasant decency without all the automated 24hr shopping and endless advertising.

Ubuntu touch project on hold:

There are still numerous threads on the site which could do with updates. I would love to be able to update the ubuntu touch thread but lacking a suitable device I have put the project on hold.

Chapter 8 – the Ubuntu Touch project is up and running (again)

I have been using the Volla phone 22 since it arrived in August… and, after a few initial hitches, reboots in the night and griping about the camera, I have got used to it and it’s a good daily companion.

I still haven’t been able to procure a replacement screen for my volla 22 (same as Gigaset GS5 lite) for a reasonable price so when I manage this then the project can be restarted. The iPhone is behaving fine although it too has its idiosyncracies. The camera is still far and away the best phone camera so far (among my phones) despite the roaring success of my Nokia 7 plus years ago.

Chapter 9 – finally taking the plunge with an apple iphone

June 2024 Jump to bottom of the page! On the day before travelling back from Lavarone, Italy, I did a daft thing and left my Vollaphone on top of the top-box on the Guzzi (motorcycle). Of course, it fell off at the next roundabout and was promptly run over by the car behind which broke the display. This was a bit sad because a) a silly thing to do and b) I had built up a good system without google on android and had a dual-boot ubuntu touch system which was beginning to work well. To cap things off, I […]

Fiddling about with the Lenovo Thinkpad T430:

I have fiddled with the T430 laptop again and removed Debian and replaced with Fedora 40 which seems to be working fine apart from the Libreboot settings. My older daughter has left me a Macbook from 2010. She is hoping that I will repair it for her but am still doing the homework and reading up on youtube (a very useful source of repair videos despite everything) so haven’t got started here yet.

Chapter 8 – Revamping the old Lenovo T430 for the next 8 years!

Round about when I started this blog in 2019 I bought a used Lenovo T430 for noting things down when travelling. It has been great over the last few years but was slowing down under Windows 10 and the drives were filling up.

Oh dear:

And we are looking to find an affordable house somewhere in the Allgäu not too far from Kempten so best of luck to us in that 😊.

Tapering off:

All things considered I am pretty happy and fine with things at the moment and am grateful not to have to endure any of the dreadful disasters that continue to fill the news pages. This meant in a humble way.

Best regards and hope to see you soon 😉