Bleadof’s world of tinkering

September 27, 2005

Trip toLondon and getting about

Filed under: Exchange, London — Bleadof @ 12:09

Jeez, this has been really exciting… I’ve been around London and seen all kinds of stuff. But now more detailed…

The arrival to London Stansted

The flight was awful. There was this Finnish woman beside me who didn’t talk but three words for me the whole time. Then again she had her friend beside her also, so that might’ve been the case… Anyway it was dreadfully dull flight.

When the flight arrived to London Stansted and we got out everything went smoothly. I got my luggage in no time and got out of the arrival area. Then I thought there’s going to be the London Metropolitan University’s team some where in the airport. I didn’t find them, I even went to the Info and they called for London Metropolitan University, but nobody came. Well, I thought I was a goner, because I had no experience moving about in London or how the hell I was going to find the Tufnell Park Halls of Residence. It went quite well actually now that I think about it. I asked for advice from the coach ticket sales and the woman there told me that I have to leave in Golders Green station, take the tube to Camden and there to Tufnell Park. Well, I did all this although at some time in the coach I thought I’m never going to find to Tufnell Park on my own. I proofed myself wrong \o/ :)

Tufnell Park Halls of Residence

After I got to Tufnell Park I found the Halls of Residence quite easilly by asking advice from the tube station. The woman there was quite helpful and said I’m not first person to ask to Halls of Residence. She even gave me a map. The Residence was two blocks from the tube station so I managed to carry all my stuff (27.9 kg) with me. In the residence there was quick service and one of the wardens showed me how to find the services in the residence and so forth. After some unpacking I filled the form where I had to state the condition of my room and sign it. The room was quite fine and it had more than I thought it would have.

Next two days

Of course the same day I arrived I had to go to the Residence bar, drink some beer and get to know to people. All the Brits were quite amazed about me getting to UK for my exchange and with one Scottish guy we sang the Monty Python’s Finland song. I also met one Erasmus student from Spain, Barcelona. With Alberto I’ve shared some of my kitchen ware and general stuff to save some money. On Sunday we did our enrollment and went to the shops to get all the basic stuff you need, like kitchen ware and pillow and such. Didn’t find all of it but it was nice to go around Camden which is a little central near Tufnell Park. I actually found a cool t-shirt there by this guy who gathers designs from few designers and it costed only £10. Their website can be found from here. It’s really cool and I really recommend checking it out.

On monday I really had fun. In the morning we went shopping again with Alberto and long story short: I got my mobile connection, went to the residence, burnt my hand on a hot plate some stupid asshole had left on unguarded, went to hospital, waited for service about 1 hour 30 minutes, got looked, waited 45 minutes to get bandaged and to get out. I was told to get to the Chelsea and Westminister hospital next morning to the Burns Section at 8-10am. Went there and they took my bandages off and told me to get lotion for the hand. Apparently it’s going to heal quite nicely. Now I’m on the same trip in West Kensington in this Costa Internet Cafe.

Transportation

Subway is really nice but really expensive at the same time. I’m thinking of getting the Oyster card because with it would be a lot cheaper to get about with tube and the busses. Gladly yoy can use your day ticket over and over again in busses because they really don’t check the date properly.

Internet access

Apparently this year it’s possible to get an ADSL internet access to your room and I’m going to get it as soon as possible, so I don’t have to be in cafes or in University to use internet. Propably I’ll be writing more often as well. Bye now o/ Stay tuned ;) (this english keyboard is odd)

September 23, 2005

Tomorrow London!

Filed under: Exchange — Bleadof @ 23:09

Yeah, it’s really coming to reality. I’m going… My train from Jyväskylä to Tampere leaves at 07.07 GMT+2 tomorrow morning. It arrives to Tampere at ~8.40 GMT+2. My flight leaves from Tampere-Pirkkala airport at 11.20 GMT+2 and it arrives to London Stanstedt airport about 12.20 GMT (14.20 GMT+2).

When I arrive there will be a London Metropolitan University team at the airport so I can ask for advice how I can find my aparment, which is Tufnell Park Hall. I hope they can help me, otherwise I’ll be lost. I need to get my key and there would be “Stop the War” rally in Hyde Park at 4pm and Belle & Sebastian would be playing there. Shite I say! I propably have no possibility to make it there. At the same time it would be perfect, but then again it’s just ironically twisted because I can’t. Evil!

Anyway wish me luck and keep posted ;)

September 22, 2005

TODO list quite done

Filed under: Exchange — Bleadof @ 18:09

I’m doing good progress :) I also bought a 1Gb USB memory stick. It was rather expensive, 70 euros. My wallet is still hurt because I bought it, but better to be prepared for the fact that I’m not going to have internet access at my room than just to trust that everything is going to work out… I know that with that money I could have bought almost a external HDD, but then again the size would have been bigger and I wasn’t sure what was the situation of the functionality under Linux with those kind of devices. I didn’t want to take the risk. Anyway the size of the Kingston Data Traveler is nicely small.

Update for the TODO list

  • Fetch Pounds from the bank(£150 is 237.37 e)
  • Send Kolari county grant application
  • Write a grant application for Kolari’s Lions Club
  • Send the Lions Club application
  • Check from the JYU International Services what do I need for the Chancellor study grand application
  • Book my train ticket for saturday to Tampere
  • Get adaptors for Finnish electric wall socket to British socket
  • Find out how to get from Tampere train station to airport
  • Figure out which stuff I can get with me (Ryanair’s luggage weight limit is 15+5)

I really like the WebCollage screensaver. I’m glad I got it working.

Webcollage XScreenSaver

Filed under: Tinkering, Ubuntu Linux — Bleadof @ 14:09

*grins* This one took some time today… It has dependencies which aren’t told you before you run it from the console *shrug*. This is how I got it to work in Ubuntu Breezy Badger (installed the preview, but now I’ve updating it from the devel repo):

  • At first, it uses /usr/dict/words as its default source for search words: In Ubuntu the one is in /usr/share/dict , but no it’s not the words file you are looking for. It’s either /usr/share/dict/british-english , /usr/share/dict/american-english or what ever language you want it to use.
  • You can set this one from the System->Preferences->Screensaver->Select WebCollage screensaver->Settings…->Advanced >>->Command line
  • It propably says: webcollage -root . Replace it with: webcollage -root -dictionary /usr/share/dict/british-english (or whatever language you want it to use).
  • After this click OK
  • Then go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager
  • Install netpbm and libjpeg-progs packages
  • There you should be set to go if you have internet connection ;) Now you can just click preview and if images start to appear, you were succesful.

September 21, 2005

Todays status

Filed under: Exchange — Bleadof @ 20:09

This is how I’m doing at the moment. Actually got some addition to the TODO list. Good thing I’ve time until Saturday \o/

  • Fetch Pounds from the bank(£150 is 237.37 e)
  • Send Kolari county grant application
  • Write a grant application for Kolari’s Lions Club
  • Send the Lions Club application
  • Check from the JYU International Services what do I need for the Chancellor study grand application
  • Book my train ticket for saturday to Tampere
  • Get adaptors for Finnish electric wall socket to British socket
  • Find out how to get from Tampere train station to airport
  • Figure out which stuff I can get with me (Ryanair’s luggage weight limit is 15+5)

So still some stuff to do… Keep posted for my status updates :)

Don’t upgrade to the latest udev 0.060-1ubuntu13

Filed under: Tinkering, Ubuntu Linux — Bleadof @ 11:09

There’s a bug(15932) in it which inflicts these problems:

  • Some devices aren’t created on the boot. Like /dev/input/mice or /dev/psaux
  • ipw2200 driver can’t load it’s firmware

Best solution is to downgrade to udev 0.060-1ubuntu12 (propably still in your /var/cache/apt/archives/udev_0.060-1ubuntu12_i386.deb)

Now I’m off to conclude my TODO list :)

September 20, 2005

Sun’s JDK on Ubuntu

Filed under: Ubuntu Linux — Bleadof @ 19:09

The mighty all knowing Google saved me again. I was wondering how could get the newest Sun’s JDK on my Ubuntu as debian package. Found a solution from Martin Fowler’s website as article named DebianJava. You need to make the package yourself but it was quite simple and the article is thoroughl. So go have fun with your JDK install \o/

Maybe it has finally sunk in…

Filed under: Exchange — Bleadof @ 17:09

This is kind of odd… It’s been quite a while that I haven’t even realized I’m leaving. Now it’s starting to sink in. Today I checked from the London Metropolitan’s Accommodation Office where I should fetch my room keys. They told me it’s straight from Tufnell Park Hall :) Now I can cross that thing from my TODO list.

Things I still have to do

  • Fetch Pounds from the bank
  • Send Kolari county grant application
  • Check from the JYU International Services what do I need for the Chancellor study grand application
  • Book my train ticket for saturday to Tampere
  • Get adaptors for Finnish electric wall socket to British socket
  • Find out how to get from Tampere train station to airport
  • Figure out which stuff I can get with me (Ryanair’s luggage weight limit is 15+5)

I think that’s most of the unfinished bussiness and I have plenty of time to sort these out :) Keep posted for more stuff!

September 18, 2005

Soon leaving…

Filed under: Exchange — Bleadof @ 16:09

Only six days for my flight to London, UK. Then I’m going to stay there till christmas. Well I might travel around UK and visit my girlfriend who is in Grenoble, France. We’ll see how it’s going to be and you can read my stuff from here ;)

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