This year I want to upload and create more video from my digital camera so starting with this post is the first, and hopefully not the last of my video blog uploads. I am just going to create them on my Sony DSC-V1 camera for now, using the default MPG encoding.
So here is me on a frozen lake, click on the picture to play.
When we moved into our flat we where lucky, the owner had supplied a satellite TV box, and the previous occupants had left their card in there for Canal Digital. As an Englishmen I was able to get my favourite BBC programs through BBC Prime (an international channel from the BBC), BBC World news, BBC Food (really good) and english programming on Discovery and a couple of other channels.
Of course being satellite I also had approx. 100 channels that I didn’t need, plus Norwegian TV2, NRK1, NRK2 and Scandinavian MTV. A fine compliment, and nothing to complain about at all. Talking with others I have also heard that the rival telenor offer a good service. Plus in Bergen cable and terrestrial services are also available, but then our TV card ran out and it must have been a week before I noticed, and I don’t miss it so much probably due to my ADSL connection supplied by NextGenTel.
NextGenTel needed about 2 weeks to fix us up with an ADSL connection, supplied over an already existing ISDN connection into the apartment, into a nice small Cisco router, and as we opted for an IP phone a custom made IP phone adaptor. This was an all in one package, and we got approx 4Mb downstream, and 756K up – ample for our requirements. I changed the wiring configuration, meaning the IP phone adaptor was no longer a bridge but fed from our switch, and the upllink going via a cross over into the Cisco Router.
The IP phone means that we can take advantage of low call costs, on with others that have an IP phone on NextGenTel free calls. Unfortunetly after some digging around on PowerPoint Presentations from various Senior Members of NextGenTel I discovered that the IP phone was a closed system to NextGenTel. What a shame, although I don’t really care about this for in Norway, I see no reason that they needed to lock the IP phone down into a closed system. Further digging and googling showed that they have bought some fairly standard IP telephoney equipment, which supports standard VoIP protocols, so this much be a commercial decision to keep the carriers in the loop.
I wonder how long it is before they realise the mistake they are making here, opening up will mean even better communications for Norwegian residents, and could again take the lead from other countries (many of whos supplied of VoIP are using closed systems), and mean even more profits as more packets will be pushed over their IP networks.
The performance of the IP phone is usually very good, and now we have some nice Siemens DECT handhelds is less reliant on the siting of the base station, but they missed a trick, unless I haven’t seen it, with bandwidth management. It might be with my new switch based setup that doesn’t help, but I would have liked to see some packet shaping meaning that I always have ample bandwidth for the phone. Yes I took it out of a bridge mode, but the performance when I am hammer my Giganews account is poor, until I make use of the throttling on NewsReactor. When I put my Linux based Firewall back into the equation this is one of the first things I am going to setup.
But at the end of the day, in our house at least, Internet is taking over television as the main medium. We still watch a lot of films, but I much prefer the ease, quality and sound on a DVD setup even though my Plasma tends to show up DVDs not so well encoded, and the odd TV show can be had by other means on the internet I think we are going to see more time spent on the Internet. HDTV might change this to some extent as it has the opportunity to pass current DVD standards in its best configurations but I have yet to see any news of when this is going to be released onto Canal Digital system.
So, despite the slight hangover, I ventured out into Bergen town today. Luckily unlike the day before where I was drenched in torrential rain, I was greeted with a grey but fresh day, hoping to get some bargins for Christmas that was until my usual Bergen shopping syndrome set in. I don’t know what it is about me or Bergen but I can’t stand shopping here and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. The shops are fine, theres a reasonable amount of choice, and I am not one to shy away from shopping but we don’t get along. Maybe its the fact that it seems busier than London, something to do with hundreds of people just standing around or generally getting in the way (haven’t they got anything more constructive to do?) or is it that I can’t find what I like or perhaps I am no longer sure about this.
So I decided to take a break from my less than successful shopping spree, I went for some noodles, except that I couldn’t find a decent noodle place to get a Ramen fix and ended up in McDonalds (at least is wasn’t the usual hotdog fast food that seems to be served everywhere). Its at this point that I was reminded of The Economist doing the Big Mac world price index, where the cost of a Big Mac around the world is compared to the cost of one in New York to compare the real exchange rates. Well I opted for a meal, but I know that a Big Mac meal in the UK before I left was about £3.88, and my Big Mac meal here cost 70NKr.
So at todays exchange rates ( 1 GBP = 11.7948 NOK) , my meal just cost £5.94 or about £2 more which is strange because I don’t recall enjoying it anymore, or even at all, but it gives an idea of how much more it is and considering McDonalds in the UK is one of the most expensive in the world I am sure you will see what the real, if you can call eating at McDonalds real, cost of living here is. Oh well at least it was the nicest looking McD’s I have been in.
December morning, originally uploaded by -Kj..
Another picture of Bergen in the snow.
Yes, I haven’t been posting very much recently as I am in Førde, Norway, at the moment. For those that don’t know Førde is situated north of Bergen where my girlfriend is performing in a Play at the Sogn og Fjordane teater.
As I am without an internet connection I don’t have the opportunity to post much (and get out of being in the cold grey outdoors of Førde but needless to say that everything else in the world of the Net seems to be going on without me.
Well I have had this post about Moving to Norway for a while now and I thought that it deserved its own page so I have moved the content and added some new ones.
Please visit http://blog.timc3.com/moving-to-norway/
to read more.
Well I have moved to Bergen and as stated in an earlier post I was going to write about moving here, firstly the town itself.
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, a municipality, it used to be the capital (now Oslo), is situated on the west coast of Norway and has a population of about 240,000 people. It is a very old trading city, and some of the old buildings can still be seen, though the most famous Bryggen is from the early 18th Century.
For satelite pictures up close, use google here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bergen+Norway&t=k&hl=en
And this is where it is in relation to the rest of Norway, indeed you can also see Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania:
ttp://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bergen+Norway&ll=60.403341,5.332489&spn=11.004356,44.461670&t=k&hl=en
For more information check out these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen%2C_Norway
http://www.bergen.kommune.no/
http://www.bergen-guide.com/
http://www.bergen-travel.com/
http://www.virtualbergen.com/ (A really well designed site)
I have recently been using Skype around the house, to make calls to friends on mobiles in the UK, to offices in the US and the only problems I got was trying to use it to call Norway, but I am sure this will get resolved at some point in time. I have a cheap headset bought from Ebuyer which is plugged into the motherboards built in sound card, leaving my other high quality cards plugged in for other duties.
It has gone well so I thought that I would try it out on a Pocket Pc, the 3715 that I have blogged about earlier, and I must say that it works like a charm. Its working over a WiFi connection, and is plenty clean enough. If only there was Wireless everywhere in London and I would be happy.
If you care to you can also get hold of me using skype:
At Morley College. More Norwegian classes, so I am probably going to do some more work on http://norsk.timc3.com sometime soon if I don’t upgrade the server somewhat.!
