Broadband Speed in Borth & Ynyslas

OK, time for a moan about our Broadband Speeds again!

As part of my job as a freelance website designer I’m often being called on to help people with their computers, set up e-mail accounts, sort out their broadband connections and generally teach them how to do certain things on their computers. Living in rural West Wales, many of these people live outside of Aberystwyth in little villages or in houses miles from anywhere. Because of this, conversation often turns to the speed of the broadband connections in these area and the fact that it is the people who live ‘out in the stick’ that need a decent connection more so than the people living in bigger towns.

Broadband has become an essential commodity these days, just like water or electricity and some of us are getting left behind. Mind you, most of the places I go to, however remote seem to have a better connection than I do. 2-3Mb per second is common in most places, whereas the most I can get is a 1Mb per second connection.

Bits and Bytes

When I do a speedtest (I usually use this real world checker) I get a download speed of around 900-950kbps and an upload speed of 200-230kbps.

Now, connection speeds such as this are measured in kilobites (or megabits) per second as opposed to kilobytes (or megabytes). Note the lower case ‘kb’ and ‘mb’ which denotes bits rather than ‘KB’ or ‘MB’ which denotes bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte so in real terms, my 950kbps download speed enables me to download data at approximately 120KBps. Not exactly great so it can take me a while to download videos and such like and it does sometimes mean that streaming things such as BBC iPlayer isn’t that successful.

Upload Speeds

Upload speeds are usually much slower – The ‘A’ in ADSL stands for Asymmetric meaning that the data transfer into the house is faster than the data transfer out of the house. This is usually fine as most people download more than they upload. However, I do quite a lot of uploading and recently I’ve been really pushing my upload limits.

As part of my backup strategy I’ve started using Carbonite as an offsite backup. The first thing I needed to do in order to use this was to upload all of my files to their server. Obviously I didn’t back up everything, but by the time I added all of my documents (letters, e-mails, financial records, spreadsheets, databases etc.) and all of my photos my upload queue had hit around 50GB. I have yet to add my music, movies or even the websites I’ve built to the queue as that would add another 30GB. I started the upload of the 50GB of data of December 22nd 2009 and it has been running almost continuously night and day since then. It finally finished the upload on Monday, 6 weeks or thereabouts of uploading!…. Oh for a faster broadband connection.

The beach is lovely in winter. Quiet, relaxed and just as pretty as in the summer.

Setting Sun

This seems to be a constant dilemma for me. We can’t always afford a holiday so we want to make sure we get the destination right but I think we just have too many requirements to find the ideal resort. It’s my 40th next year so we’re looking at the possibility of going on a holiday that will suit me perfectly as a bit of a treat.

Anna isn’t too fussy. She wants comfortable accommodation, decent food and a few places to visit and see. She would also like to do some activities herself, so some easy windsurfing, kayaking and snorkelling etc. should keep her happy. Most of which you can find anywhere.

Morgan is a little more difficult, so the resort has to be family-friendly with a proper kids-club. Preferably one run by a UK company with qualified staff and good activities.

I guess I’m the one who makes it difficult. For a summer holiday I want to be able to go windsurfing so the destination has to have a proper windsurf centre with a good choice of modern kit, and it has to be windy, preferably very windy. I’d also like to be able to do some Mountain-Biking just in case the wind doesn’t blow. Again, I’m not after a tranquil little ride but some proper mountain-biking trails on good quality bikes.

Places such as Vassiliki seem to offer all of this, but the next problem is timing. We have to fit it in within the school holidays, which as it happens is a windy period in Vassiliki, but of course this makes it quite expensive and we really wanted a winter sun destination not a summer one.

In fact the only other place we can think of that ticks all of the boxes is Borth, where we live!. It is almost always windy, I have a beach on my front door and good MTB trails on my back-door. I always seem to come to this conclusion!

The Annual Borth and Ynyslas fireworks party went well last night. Despite the terrible weather forecast, loads of people turned up to Dave and Sarah’s, most with plates of food and a firework. We also took a pumpkin and were supposed to take some toilet roll but forgot!

The bonfire was soon lit and although there were a few showers the torrential rain held off and plenty of people stood around the fire chatting, eating and drinking, The kids ran riot as usual, we threw some of our old furniture onto the fire (which saved a trip to the tip) and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, catching op with people they hadn’t seen for a while.

Out came the sparklers, off went the fireworks and down went the food. All in all a nice evening as usual, and not too far to go home either!

The end of a busy weekend with no time for blogging, so here’s my first blog entry about what we got up to.

It was National Moth Night on Sept 18th-19th. National Moth Night (NMN) is Britain’s celebration of moths and moth recording and started in 1999.

As well as producing information about moths, an important aim of the event is to raise the profile of these insects, to highlight how attractive they are, and to raise awareness of the declines in moth populations that have taken place. Public events take place around the country, which can be a great introduction to the world of moths and stimulate some people to take up a fascinating new interest.

Aberdyfi by Night

The Warden at Ynyslas Nature Reserve had organised an event so we popped along to see what was going on. I took a few photos of Aberdyfi by night and then we met a few other people in the dunes by the visitor centre and found Mike (Senior Reserves Manager, Dyfi NNR) who had set up a moth trap in the dunes and also one on the bog.

I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about moths and moth trapping, but we all huddled around the light of the moth trap whilst Mike gave us some stats and information on how it all works. He also told us  a few stories of rare moth finds and sightings in the area as the moths started to appear. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see quite as many as had been hoped for, but some of them were still pretty impressive.

We went back in the morning to see what had been caught in the other traps and saw a few more species. I was surprised by how well behaved they were in the morning and the fact that they should be relatively easy to photograph, so it probably won’t be long before I set up a moth trap of my own and start photographing and identifying them.

Looking at the moths

Canary Shouldered Thorn (Ennomos alniaria)

Light Emerald ( Campaea margaritata)

As far as identification goes, the book recommended was ‘A Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland‘. It isn’t the cheapest book but it is pretty comprehensive, looked good and came highly recommended as ‘The ‘ book to get. Yep, I’ve already ordered a copy from Amazon! The 2nd edition came out earlier this year so if you’re buying make sure you get the new edition.

Next job is to build a moth trap and put it in the garden to see just how many species I can identify. Of course, if I’m going to start photographing them too then I may need a new macro lens and other bits and pieces to improve on the macro capabilities of my camera… Toys, toys, toys!

Mike was really helpful and seemed keen to get someone else in the area ‘into moths’ so I’m sure he’ll help out with identification of the various species if I need it.

After collecting Morgan from school yesterday we popped in to see a friend but a Morgan was nodding off to sleep I decided to take him for a little stroll on the beach for some fresh air to revitalise him!

I had my little compact Pentax Optio W60 waterproof camera with me so I took a few shots whilst we were there. It wasn’t a particularly exciting day weather wise but with a little bit of fiddling I was able to get some decent shots.

Which is your favourite?

Time for a rant….

First of all, dog owners that don’t clean up after their dogs, it’s disgusting, especially in public places and around here on the beach. There are kids playing in the dunes, digging in the sand and generally crawling around on the beach. The last thing they want to come across is a big pile of dog poo! Same for me, the little area of grass that I use to rig up on when going windsurfing at the top of the dunes is always covered in dog poo. It’s not nice at all!… Clear up after your dogs!

Even worse though are those idiot dog owners who do take some bags with them, pick up the poo and then leave the bags complete with poo in a nice little pile on the beach somewhere.. What’s the point of that? I know what, rather than just leaving dog poo on the beach I’ll put it in a nice plastic, non-biodegradable bag so that it hangs around on the beach for 10 times as long.. Very clever!

Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Maybe its time to start reporting people. Who’s with me on this?

Coryline Australis

I’m on a mission to turn the main road through Ynyslas into an avenue of palm trees!

OK, it’ll probably never happen but I think it would look nice. One of the things I like about the Isle of Man is the number of palm trees there. More accurately they are actually Cordyline Australis which have a number of common names including Manx Palm or Cabbage Palm and they are everywhere on the Isle of Man, giving it a somewhat tropical look!

As you arrive on the island by plane, the area around the airport is full of pretty impressive specimens and if you arrive by boat it isn’t long before you see some.

They grow well here in West Wales too and withstand the sandy soil, winds and sea spray that all too commonly destroy most plants. There are already quite a few in Ynyslas but I think it would look nice if there were more. We have one that is growing well in our back garden but I’m now on a mission to get more of them growing, especially along the road. I’ve planted one in the front garden right by the fence and a couple more will join that soon. Lets just hope they stand up to the winds as gardening in a windy area is always difficult.

I’m even giving a few away as presents to people (usually to say thanks for feeding the cat whilst we’ve been away), hopefully they’ll plant them in their gardens too and before you know it, Ynyslas will take on a tropical look!

So, if you live in Ynyslas, plant one in your front garden, they aren’t expensive to buy, they grow well, are easy to look after and will brighten up your life!

I haven’t been out of the house for a week so as it was such a lovely day I just had to go for a nice easy walk in the dunes. I had Morgan with me so it was more of a tiny little stroll really, but I still managed to take a few photos.

I hope you like them

I always say that the best camera is the one you have with you, and since buying a little Pentax Optio W60 a few weeks ago this has proved to be true. It may not have quite the optics of my Canon SLR or the features and flexibility, but the fact that I can pop it in my pocket and take it with me wherever I go means that I can actually take photos more often.

I’m forever walking across to the beach to check on the wind or surf conditions and I did this on Tuesday evening with the camera in my pocket and as the surf wasn’t great I sat there for a couple of minutes and took some photos. The camera performed perfectly and the results were brilliant considering I was just taking snapshots with a little waterproof compact camera.

I’m also getting used to the fact that the camera doesn’t have a viewfinder just and LCD screen on the back. Having used an SLR for years it was difficult at first to get used to holding the camera away from my face to take photos but it does have its advantages. For a start I don’t have to lie in the floor to take shots from a low angle and if anything this means I tend to experiment with shots from different angles.

All in all, I’m loving the new camera.

Pebble bank

Sandy Beach

Storm Beach

Ynyslas Beach

Evening Light

Sunny reflections