Short little posts on Life’s little events, experiences, and other observations
Admittedly, I did remark I would get rid of my car about 5 years ago. But have yet to do so.
To be honest, I just can’t be bugged with replacing it. While the paintwork is now well and truly fading and I get ribbed for it being the worst car at my workplace, the thing still reliably runs.
Have driven better cars in recent years mainly as rentals, and while I will admit they’re nice to drive, I don’t get enough elation to run out and get a newer car.
Ray White Open home sign in Rolleston…
A family has now moved in to the property I most recently purchased, with an Alarm system to go in very shortly.
I have noticed many houses that were for sale have since gone straight into the rental pool. Anecdotally, it appears to be happening all around the country. Consequently, should the trend continue, I would not be surprised to see that we eventually end up with a nationwide Rental glut at some point. May be the tables will then finally turn in favour of tenants and instead of Renters scrambling for properties to rent, Landlords would be scrambling for Tenants.
We don’t know how long this low interest rate environment is going to last. The government to be honest (both current and past) have been exceedingly coy as to their apparent lack of will do actually do anything concrete about the housing affordability and the accelerating inequality in this country.
Earnslaw Burn track to the water falls and a look at the Lupins around Glenorchy, click picture below to view the gallery. As pretty as the Lupins are during bloom, they’re are classed as an invasive weed.
Just saw a notification that the Snap NextCloud installation I had running had been updated to version 18.0.4. For me this is fairly significant in that you can now self host your own office suite with “ONLYOFFICE” community edition and if you are ambitious enough, allowing the option to move away from the likes of Google and Microsoft (Office 365).
The catch is that you have to set it up yourself by installing the needed Apps. To do this, go into Profile, then Apps and enable “Hub Bundle” (or at the very least “Community Document Server” and “ONLYOFFICE”)
Upon doing that, I ran into headaches with this vague and unhelpful error message…
Diving into the nextcloud.log… (the location of which is going to be different depending on your installation. Helpful I know.)
"message":"Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 315857416 bytes)
I had to fire up an SSH session and send the following commands (applicable to Ubuntu Linux). One to increase the memory limit to 512 Megabytes and the 2nd one to restart the NextCloud service….
sudo snap set nextcloud php.memory-limit=512M sudo snap restart nextcloud
Back in NextCloud’s web interface, navigated back to Apps section and tried Enabling the Hub bundle again. Still got a flipping error!
"Cannot declare class OCA\\Talk\\Migration\\Version2000Date20170707093535, because the name is already in use at xxxxxxxxxxx"
At a loss as to now what to do, I then went through for each App under the Hub Bundle, clicking on Enable one by one and it worked for some completely and disconcertingly unknown reason (No errors happened this time around… have no idea why, sorry.)
After that, I went back to my Files and had a play at creating new word documents… (Success I guess)
Seems to work pretty well for a family user set up, even on the lowest tier VPS plan with my provider. (1CPU / 2GB RAM). Included with the ONLYOFFICE suite is a Word Processor, Spread Sheet and Presentation (slides) application. At the moment, the biggest issue I can see is the lack of a working spell checker on the community server plugin as reported here and here which I feel is fairly fundamental to a Word Processor. Little bit concerning is that the web browser based (core or plugin based) spell checkers don’t appear to work inside of it either.
I think at this stage, for word processing, will stick with using the visual Markdown editor “Text” (by Julius Härtl) and continue trailing out the Spread Sheet application by doing my Tax return on it and then reporting back here.
Despite the messing around and troubleshooting to get it working I’m overall pretty otherwise pleased with the “Only Office” implementation (Community Server plugin) as a proof of concept.
After receiving the flu shot for as long as I remember, the episode last weekend represents perhaps the 4th year in a row that I’ve come down with “Flu like” symptoms. The distinguishing symptoms of Influenza (vs the common cold) as advised my by GP would be Fever (in my case, 39.1°C at the armpit, normally 36.8°C), Chills, Body ache, headaches and stomach upset which I all experienced over a week.
While I still support the idea of as many people getting the flu shot as possible, (if not for the benefit of one self, but the protection of the collective so to speak), it would behoove manufacturers to actually drastically improve on this vaccine… Admittedly, after 4 years of Flu shot failures, it does get tiring.
This is not a shot against vaccines in general at all, and is specifically about the flu shot only. People who misconstrue this as an Anti Vax article ought to have a clip around the ear
I concur with Nikita Prokopov’s view of the state of the Software Development Industry: https://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/
Where we are today is indeed not ideal.
Another visit to Coromandels, this time to explore around Wentworth Falls, it’s mid tier, Whangamata Track, and part of Maratoto Track (to the little shelter / clearing for lunch) before returning back the same way.
Loop walk around the Kuraeranga Valley. Booms Flat + Whangaiterenga Track, click picture below to access gallery…
Update 14/06/2018: Will no longer be attending this year’s Fieldays, everyone who had expressed interest to attend Fieldays with me have all since pulled out. Not worth me driving down there alone from Auckland.
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Noticed that the Incorporated Society behind the National Fieldays has increased the Adult ticket price for this Year for those booking online via Stream Ticketing from $20.00 per Adult (+$5.00 booking per transaction) to $30.00 per Adult (+$0.90 booking fee per ticket). This represents roughly a 50% price increase over the preceding year if taking the scenario of booking online for a group of 4-5 together. Continue reading “Fieldays 2018 Adult Entry price increase”
Random spur of the moment Road trip down to Hamilton and surrounds. Click picture to access Gallery…
While the Olympus TG-3 has served me well, the camera equipped with my Samsung S7 Active phone seems to have the TG-3 beaten hands down in the image quality department. The only thing the TG-3 has over my Phone is optical zoom. The Dynamic Range on the S7 Active is so far the best I’ve seen from any camera I’ve owned.
22nd April 2018 – Pack Raft Explore of the river from Karangahake Gorge towards Paeroa township. Click Picture below to access the gallery.
1st March 2018 – Quick stop at the Auckland Domain to view the Lanterns, before the hoards come on the days to follow. Click picture below to access the gallery.
18th February 2018 – Testing out Carl’s Alpacka Gnu Pack raft, click picture to access gallery…
6th February 2018 – Waitangi Festivities at Okahu Bay at the Orakei Domain…
Hosted by Ngati Whatua Orakei in conjunction with Auckland Council Continue reading “Ngati Whatua Orakei Waitangi”
Pictures from a short stop at Taitua Arboretum. Click Picture to view Gallery…
Day boat tour on Gulf Eco Charters‘ Launch “Kokomo”, with Kurt Salmond and his Family. Click Picture below to access the Gallery on NUI.NZ…
Departed Sandspit Yacht Club, around past Tawharanui where conditions was quite wavy, then direct to Taranga Island, part of the Hen and Chickens archipelago for our first snorkelling stop.
Then westward to the west side of the island where we anchored for a nice light lunch prepared by Clair (Kurt’s other half) of wraps and muffins.
We then cruised around north past West Chicken island before heading east towards Lady Alice Island where we anchored at Karimoko Bay for another spot of Snorkeling.
Aftewards, a short stop by Sail Rock and then a smooth cruise back to Base at Sandspit. Continue reading “Gulf Eco Charters Hen and Chicken Islands”
Over the New Year period, did a couple of road trips to explore around the Waiarapa region
First port of call was visiting Cape Palliser (Click Photo below to access gallery)
…and Putangirua Pinnacles (Click Photo below to access gallery) before diverting to Havelock North
A later attempt to finish off the road trip was made shortly after my King Country Road Trip, where I went to visit the Gallipoli The Scale of our War Exhibition at Te Papa. Click picture below to access the Photo Gallery
With a visit to Castle Point, Tinui ANZAC walkway and Stone Hedge Aotearoa (Click Photo below to access gallery) staying at Rusty Nail Lodge in Taihape on the way back.
Pictures from the Heaphy Track, including a few off track explores to some caves. Click picture below to access the gallery on NUI.NZ…
Photos from a Caving experience on a private farm at Pio Pio. Thanks agasin to Suzie, Phil and Luke for their hospitality and having us scullywags. Click picture to below to access the gallery on NUI.NZ…
Occasionally I will take advantage of Rental Relocation deals to usually to do a road trip after a key event concludes (be it, after a hike or after a work trip) to explore an area that is new to me.
After attending the Outdoor Training NZ AGM in Wellington in the weekend just past, A JUCY Condo Camper van was lined up in order to go back to Auckland, where we took turns driving it back to Auckland. It was perhaps my first time experiencing driving a Van and a Camper.
About the “JUCY” Campervan itself. Main points…
General observations about renting a car (not necessarily confined to Relocation deals)…
It is in my feeling that you really need at least 48 hours to make the Car rental relocation journey a worthwhile undertaking, otherwise it could all just driving point to point with little time to actually stop off on the way to look at things.
Many Excess reduction insurance options offered by many rental car companies excludes the likes…
Most standard Holidays parks charge per person in terms of Camping, not per site, bear that in mind when looking around for places to stay. Cabins and motel units at the same Holiday parks are usually advertised at the Twin rate.
If you have a self contained Camper van, it may be prudent financially to take advantage of that and Freedom Camp where ever possible and as long as it is legal to do so.