hertenberger.co.za

It’s been another busy year. Here’s wishing you all a great 2010!

A great outing is the Montecasino Bird Park – that should be combined with the Jozi-Eye, which provides a 150m high platform from which to view our fine city. Weather-permitting, the helium-filled balloon flies daily from 08h00 to 20h00 and is winched back down after spending about 15 minutes aloft.

The circular platform carries up to 30 passengers at once – on our morning flight, there was hardly anyone else around and the wind blew the balloon around a bit every now and again.

With clear skies, the view is stunning and well worth it.

Updating a version of WordPress is a simple matter of clicking a button – the currently installed version even indicates whether or not a newer version has been made available. I tried the update once or twice but was stumped by an error that indicated a lack of memory.

The error relates to the PHP processor and has nothing to do with WordPress itself. There are a couple of possible fixes, but which one to apply depends very much on the type of access one has to the WordPress installation one is attempting to upgrade. In most hosted setups, there is no chance of editing the .htaccess file to add a memory parameter in the form php_value memory_limit 256MB, or to modify an entry in the PHP.ini file to change the memory limit by way of the parameter memory_limit = 256M;

The easiest means of fixing the upgrade procedure in my case was to ssh to my blog’s hosted system and to add a parameter to the wp-config.php. I added the following: define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’);. That provides 256MB to the PHP processor and should hopefully cater for future upgrades to WordPress whenever those come along.

The change to the file is all that is required – after that, the update to 2.9 worked without a hitch.

Once again, the update to WordPress is highly recommended – the amount of time the update takes is negligible and will ensure that all the latest security patches are present.

Simple board games are often a great source entertainment. Those adding a puzzle element that is simple yet vexing stretch brain cells during lazy holidays! The Gogetter Cat & Mouse puzzle consists of nine elements depicting pathways.

In conjunction with a square board and a book of challenges, the simple task of leading a mouse to a piece of cheese becomes quite a head-scratcher: setting the path from one to the other is reasonably easy, but the important thing to bear in mind is that the remaining pathways cannot simply dead-end.

As skill levels increase, so does the difficulty of the puzzles, often involving the connection of three or more objects and avoiding a connection to others at the same time.

Available at select toy stores, this is a great puzzler for young and old alike.

December seems to bring out the worst in my collection of GPS devices. One year ago, the 710 had a very odd failure. In the past week, the Edge 705 has misbehaved in a rather strange way too: heart rate monitor and cadence sensor recognized and data displayed, though I couldn’t seem to cycle faster than 0.1km/h and achieve an overall distance of 64m! That happened twice and powering the unit on and off multiple times made no difference whatsoever. At 90km/h in the car on the way home, the 705 indicated the correct speed and distance covered, but not when sitting in its cradle on the handlebar of the Anthem…

Once again, the easiest fix is a reset of the unit, but I had to perform a quick Google search to find out how to reset the Edge 705. It’s rather simple: power the unit off, then power it back on again whilst holding in the Mode button. The unit will request a reset of all user data – respond with Yes. No saved data is lost and the Edge 705 seems to be working without a hitch once again.

I followed my usual December GPS routine and searched for a new unit software update using the Mac version of the Garmin WebUpdater. On December 2, version 3.10 was released for the Edge 705 which includes the following enhancements and fixes:

• Added ability to use waypoint elevation as the starting elevation for an activity when the user starts within approximately 30m of this waypoint.
• Fixed issue where workouts using power zones based on percent of FTP or heart rate zones based on percent of maximum HR were saved incorrectly.
• Fixed issue where Garmin Training Center could give a data transfer failed error if the unit had a bike profile name longer than fifteen characters.
• Fixed issue with inaccurate display of history dates in some languages.
• Added support for updated Australia Daylight Saving Time start and end dates.
• Updated translations

The update to 3.10 to a scant three minutes and included a device reset. The Edge 705 is once again ready for action and updated with the latest software.

Michael Schumacher has announced his return to Formula 1 racing, a move that will encourage me to once again follow a sport that has had very little appeal for me in the past few years. It’s not that Schumacher’s return will change the way races are run or diminish the boredom of racing that generally isn’t. Instead, it’ll be good to have a driver to support again…

Schumacher moves from Ferrari to an all-German Mercedes-Benz for at least three seasons.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

May you and yours have a merry Christmas!

Puzzle games are not my forte – I prefer racing games and those I can start quickly and leave quickly without having to bother about a plot or strategy.

From both a technical and game-play perspective, Machinarium is an absolute gem and a game I can heartily recommend to most any computer user. First off, the technical implementation is impressive. The game has been developed, and is played, in a Flash environment. That means the game runs on any platform: Windows, Mac and Linux. Machinarium is an independent development that cost less than USD 1000 to develop!

The graphics are stunning, featuring the player’s character (a robot) and spectacularly detailed backdrops to each section of the game. Gameplay is easy: using a mouse, manipulate the behaviour of the robot by either stretching or shrinking his size, moving around and interacting with elements in the game world. It’s a puzzle game, so each screen presents a new set of challenges the player needs to solve to be able to advance. A hint is available to assist those stuck at any point in the game. Throughout each section of the game, the robot is able to collect items and is able to combine them to solve a puzzle.

Machinarium is highly recommended – the purchase price is a scant USD 10 (for a limited time) and this game will provide a lot of entertainment for both young and old. Check out the demo here.

In recent weeks, we upgraded our analogue Ninco circuit to its digital equivalent. Ninco’s N-Digital system utilizes the same track pieces and cars, but replaces the track accepting electrical input with a computerized module and new controllers.

The greatest advantage of the N-Digital system over the conventional analogue system is the fact that up to eight cars can be run on two slots. With the addition of change-over sections, cars can overtake and run one behind the other. Since it’s a digital system, the computer counts laps and keeps track of position. In more advanced race modes, the computer is able to determine “fuel” usage based on power output and force certain cars to pit in a special pit lane. Overall, it’s a lot of fun, though the digital system is, at least in my experience, not exactly plug-and-play.

There are various entry points into the N-Digital world. I chose the Digital Mastertrack suitcase, which combines the necessary digital starter track component, computer, digital chips and controllers with a fair amount of track. The Mastertrack is a reasonable option if you already own cars and track – there are no cars in the Mastertrack pack. For a direct entry into the N-Digital system, the N-Digital Starter Pack is possibly a better bet, combining two cars with the necessary digital components. It’s a question of preference and possibly budget. To round out the package, I added some extra straight track pieces, pit lane and Control Tower.

It is not possible to utilize an analogue car on the N-Digital track – since the track is constantly powered at 100%, any “unchipped” car will simply zoom off without any hope of being stopped. Analogue cars can be easily converted. This requires the chassis to be separated from the body shell, some wiring to be changed and the whole thing put back together again. Cars with a lot of interior detail (seats and drivers, for example) or very flat vehicle may be difficult to put back together again once the chip has been installed. Also, it’s a good idea to add the chip and quickly test the car before screwing the chassis to the body. In almost all cases, the wiring from the braids to the motor via the N-Digital chip has to be reversed.

Up to eight cars can be accommodated, each one linked to a controller numbered 1 through 8. Linking a chip to a controller is easy, but requires only that car on the track. For more than four cars, a second power supply is required.

The default layout suggested by the N-Digital Mastertrack package is, in my opinion, a rather useless one. Corners are far too tight, straights too short and visibility very poor due to many overpasses. Obviously designed for use in cramped Spanish apartments. We opted for something somewhat bigger – our current layout is a track of roughly 20m on an area measuring roughly four square meters. With a bigger layout, the task of switching lanes is immediately easier – initially, this requires a bit of practice. A button on the back of the controller selects a lane change on a specific piece of track. As the car approaches, a small diverting section switches the car to the other slot without affecting any cars following, regardless of distance. After a few laps, lane changes can be effected without effort and are generally very reliable.

Far less reliable is the performance of the cars. In the beginning, I struggled immensely to get cars to respond properly to the controller. The digital chip had been installed correctly, but the erratic behaviour of the cars was frustrating: cars would simply stop and require a gentle push, or cars would simply speed off without any change in the power output on the controller. A lot of fiddling and positioning of braids seemed to fix that issue. Once running, the performance of the N-Digital system is really good and provides a lot of entertainment. Unfortunately, the erratic behaviour does persist every now and then – whether this is just due to the braids is something I’m not sure of. It may also be related to dust or dirt on the track and possibly shorting of the electrical current for environmental reasons.

The N-Digital system makes for great racing and provides the excitement that only larger, multi-lane circuits could offer. Of course it is possible to extend the N-Digital circuit to more lanes than two. However, two lanes are more than enough for five racers and strategy can become an important component once pit stops are brought into play.

For our fixed layout. I’ll be playing around with different track designs in the next months to determine which one will provide a good compromise between technical driving and simple, straight, fast fun!

We’ve had an enjoyable time reading Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. So enjoyable, in fact, that we are reading it again. Reading books more than once is a common occurrence…

This is also the first time we’re reading a book together on the Kindle, and it’s proving to be of no consequence at all – thanks to the Kindle’s ability to display both text and illustrations, my young audience of one has had no signs paper withdrawal to speak of.

The story of the Fantastic Mr. Fox is rather simple: after stealing once too often from the three farmers on whose property Mr. Fox has dug a hole for him and his family, the farmers swear revenge. Boggis, Bunce and Bean initially manage to outfox Mr. Fox, but the end result is simply the shooting off of his tail.

Not wanting to risk further livestock losses, the three farmers decide to dig the fox and his family out. It’s a dig-fest, with Mr. Fox and family having to dig faster than three spades and later, a power shovel.

At the point of starvation, Mr. Fox hatches an ingenious and successful plan: with the farmers waiting him out, he manages to locate more food than his family could ever need…

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a short read and a lot of fun. After our second read is done, I think we’ll wait for the movie