A great night out at ALFE's in Keighley

What a great night we had at ALFE's of Church Street, Keighley, excellent food, excellent service, all at a reasonable price. One of the best Chinese meals I have had. Check out the web site..
http://www.alfes.co.uk/. Many thanks to both AL and Jordan for making us so welcome.

More free software and apps to note

The new version of an application called 'EVERNOTE' is really good, it is available for all platforms, PC, MAC, iPAD, iTouch and Android. It is more than a note taking or memo writing package, it can be used for notes, voice / sound recording and clipping web site. The best thing it syncs all your platform apps together, So if you make a note on your HTC android phone, it appears on your PC at home. Very good free app if you have many platforms and pieces of kit. You get some free storage (enough for most uses) but there is an option to pay monthly for more ($5 per month I think!!)  Free apps are the best I think though.

Something which has just come out is Google+, a rival to FACEBOOK, sign up and join in.......

Hunslet Festival & Gala

Saturday the 25th of June was the 8th Hunslet Community Gala, organised by the Hunslet Festival Committee.  What a great event, the best ever in my opinion, we had great weather, great acts in the arena, great attractions and rides. As always although small in size, it all fits on to a football pitch, there is a very large community spirit. I have just got the photos uploaded from the day taken by Jeff...thanks to him (plus some by myself). Follow the links from the web site and it leads to the Gala photo album and archive on Picasa web albums (a very good free on-line service).
www.hunsletfestival.org.uk

My first Camera

After a little dabbling in photography at Kitson College in the early 70"s, the entry level SLR (single lens reflex) camera was either a choice of a Practica or a Zenith E, I chose the latter a classic robust machine made with solid Russian craftmanship. As with most Zenith owners and battling with the lack of through the lens metering, I upgraded after a year to my 'dream' camera. The Olympus OM1 (MD), the MD stood for Motor Drive version....don't get excited, it only meant that it had the contacts and gears to add a separate motor drive which would the film on automatically (a feature of all modern film cameras, now, if you can find a film camera!!!!). Although the Zenith was sold to a work colleague, I still have the OM1, although sadly the through-the-lens metering system does not work. 

A Treat......The Jewel of India, Otley

Nice atmosphere, polite staff, very nice food and reasonable prices, fully recommend the Jewel of |India in Bridge Street Otley,

http://www.thejewelofindia.co.uk/

Have you a Video Camera?

Having owned a video camera since the early 1980's, yes, one of those very large cameras with an even larger full size VHS "portable" recorder, which needed a flight bag to carry it in. I have moved with the technology through small tapes to a hand-held mini DVD camcorder, which as the format of the moment. But having been so confused with the different types of discs, the different formats to record on with the hassle of transferring to the PC. Seeing a review of the FLIP video camcorder (Flip Ultra 2nd Gen, HD) looked good. After filming some of the Gala this June on the DVD camera, and the hassle of trying to get this shared, I wondered if the Flip was the camera for me. So was I right? Spot on- yes it was, small and compact, simple to operate one botton for record and one button for playback, either direct into a TV via a mini HDMI lead (buy it on ebay, much cheaper) or direct into the Computer using the built in USB connector. Of course for the the best advantage of this was the FLIP software which installs itself from the camera, so easy to use, copy, make movies with sounds etc, string sequences together and auto upload to Youtube if required. So a really great camera. As an advantage, there is a waterproof case available for about £30, it is safe down to about 9 metres. Well we will soon see at Half term when we go to Majorca!!!!

Social Networking

It seems that everyone now who has a computer or a smart phone or an iTouch, is using one of the social networking tools, ie Facebook,MS Messenger, GTalk, Twitter etc. Someone recently mentioned that i was always on line, yes I am in fact, I run all the various logins from my Android Phone. However, it is difficult to manage all the different apps at the same time, so I use 'NIMBUZZ' which is available for all the various media, iPhone/iTouch, Android and PC. It collects all the various logins and my 'friends' and logs me in all at the same time. It also has a status line, which can be linked to a twitter account, so that can be updated as well.  www.nimbuzz.com       try a download.     An alternative is also available called 'palringo'. which does most of the same logins.