We had another trip up to the Scottish capital to visit my sister this month. We chose to go by train because it's not too expensive, quick and not too stressful. It's also the greenest option. You have to know what you are doing when buying tickets as there are various options. Having a Family Railcard saves a lot for us. We used the GNER Mallard service. The new trains are comfortable and have mains power plus wifi. I didn't use either of those this time. Our audio players managed on battery and I still don't have wifi capability. Even if I did I would really have to need it. Considering that you have to pay a fair bit just to be sitting on the train I would think they could make the wifi cheaper. You have to pay a minimum of £3 for a half hour. Of course, first class passengers get it 'free'.

For most of our stay in Edinburgh we used the buses. It cost around £6 for a day ticket for 2 adults and a child, but we only made a couple of trips each time. It can be confusing to work out what tickets to get and which routes to use, but that applies in most cities. We were lucky to have someone with local knowledge.

We visited the zoo. It's generally a good one, but some of the larger animals, e.g. polar bear and tiger, could do with a lot more space. The tiger was pacing at the back of it's cage, others were just sleeping. I have mixed feelings about zoos, but most of the big ones are pretty active in breeding programmes. We can hope that seeing the animals will encourage people to think more about what we are doing to the planet, but I expect some just go to see something new. They had some good activities to keep the kids amused.

I've been looking around for some music playing software for the Acer. My main requirements were that it should play OGG, be simple to use and preferably free (as in beer at least). One thing I've found with the Acer is that it is very LOUD! No need for volume boosting technology as on the Palm. Windows Media is pretty useless so ruled itself out.

First up was MortPlayer. This has lots of nice features, including some good skins with big buttons, but I had some problems with the power saving. Once the screen turned off I had problems getting it back on. Whilst using it I suffered a crash that required a hard reset. Since then I have lost the ability to see the battery level. It just shows 0%. This may be unrelated to the application. It could be a hardware fault, but the battery still works.

Next was TCPMP. This is mainly a video player for those who want to watch films and TV on a tiny screen. For audio it's pretty limited. It doesn't even display the playlist whilst playing.

Finally we come to GSPlayer. It's fairly similar to Mort, but I have yet to find a nice skin. However, it works very well and was extensively tested on our recent train journey. This will do for now.

Like the Palm the Acer may be limited to 1GB SD cards. This is a shame as the bigger ones are getting cheaper.

For playlists I am using a little Python script I wrote. It scans my music folders for those without a playlist an creates one. This meets my requirements as I mainly listen to albums. I intend to publish it on the site eventually.

Just in case anyone is on the edge of their seat waiting for my next item (unlikely), this is to say that I do have a few things I want to write about audio software on a Windows PDA, travelling by train and other stuff, but need to find the time. It tends to take me more than a couple of minutes to write each item as I like to include some relevant links. I ought to find a way to automate things like links Wikipedia. I also want to add a wiki to the site, but mainly to hold semi-static information so I can easily update it. I'm playing with MoinMoin on my PC, but need to work out how to transfer it.

I get a fair bit of spam. As I have my own domain I'm a bigger target than most individuals. I've avoided some of it by directing some standard addresses that I don't use to a black hole address. I still get a lot to my personal address. I can't be sure where this has been taken from, but I suspect that someone may have scanned the PGP public key directories. The mail server I use is running filters that pick up most of the spam and tag it as such, so I can easily filter it. I just have some issues with Kmail filters on my IMAP email. Basically it insists on marking the non-spam as being read, so it's hard to pick up on what is new.

A more recent problem is that the spammers are faking addresses from my domain in the From. So I am getting lots of emails bounced back at me now. One of these days it will become impossible to use legitimate email as nothing will get past the filters.

Meanwhile, I've been continuing my open mapping efforts. The map of Arlesey is coming along nicely, but I haven't found time to get out and do all the minor roads. I've been too busy building new shelves in the study and gardening. This week I have the PFGM AGM and a Herts LUG meeting.