A big day for the Indian space programme and a poke in the eye for the Russians who crashed landed their attempt earlier in the week.

Preparations Camping in the rain can be a little disappointing but its something British campers tend to get used to. This trip was to be the first for my daughters who had never been on a family camping trip before despite both being in their late teens. They had camped wit...

Crow Road Today was my first proper ride for over a couple of weeks and also my first go on the new [Zwift Portal(https://zwiftinsider.com/climb-portal-list/)] routes. I was prompted to try Crow Rd on the Zwift rides home screen so I decided I would give it a go. At 6.9km th...

Returning my reMarkable About a month ago I purchased a reMarkable eInk notebook. I had looked at them a number of times over the last year or so but had never seen one in person until I was on site with one of the team from IT Naturally who was using hers to make notes duri...

Now This is my now page. What I am doing right now(ish) My name is Scott Paterson and I am an IT manager currently working for one of the UK’s largest social care providers. I have been working in IT for nearly 40 years and have done most things from data analyst, software d...

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A couple of weeks ago I got a text out of the blue from an old friend, James who had just heard that another friend of ours, Will Green, had unfortunately passed away. I hadn’t heard from Will or spoken to him in some time but the out of the blue call from James did leave me...

14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible is a fascinating documentary about a group of Nepalese mountaineers led by the fearless Nirmal Purja who set out to conquer all 14 of the worlds 8,000+ metre mountains in under 7 months.

A staggering watch, well recommended. Watch out for the summit of Everest… Mind blowing

This week has been a bit crappy to be honest. I have spent most of it lay in bed, coughing and feeling weak and exhausted. My chest hurts and my head feels like its full of cotton wool and I am actually really tired of feeling this way. It’s only a week, nothing compared to ...

My Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad have been gathering dust in the office recently after I changed from using my MacBook in clamshell mode connected to an external monitor to using in front of the monitor, so I decided to setup them up on my iPad Mini. Trouble is they were paired to my MacBook so didn’t show up in Bluetooth settings on the iPad to pair them and I couldn’t remember how to reset them.

The solution for this was quite easy. Just power each device on and off five times, then go to the Bluetooth settings on the iPad and they appear ready for pairing.

Following my desk space re-organisation this weekend I am back to using my MacBook keyboard again for the first time in quite a while. Having worked predominantly with an external mouse and keyboard with my MacBook in clamshell mode in a vertical stand I decided I would like...

Turned out nicely I think.

Six months into the new job and things are starting to get pretty busy and I am certainly past the honeymoon period and into the time when people around the organisation know who I am. That’s both nice but also means free time to develop knowledge and do things how you would...

Today finds me at home still full of cold after more than a week with a beautiful sunny day outside that would have been perfect for an Autumn bike ride. Gutted and grumpy. It’s also been three months since I left CVT and therefore six months since I handed in my notice and ...

This looks interesting.

Just £449 in the UK with 24 months interest free credit to boot !

May be tempted myself

Link	Description
Zwift Hub	£449 for a nice looking direct drive smart trainer

We are probably only a month or so away from the release of the latest macOS version Ventura but the current latest version, Monterey, still has the same QuickLook issue that it has had since release. Pretty regularly I will press Space on a file in the Finder to get a quick...

Muxton to Cheswardine Starting an early ride in late August in the UK can be tricky when making decisions about clothing, too much and by the time you get going you are cooking and too little and the early part of your ride can be on the chilly side. This morning I went for ...

Against The Clock

Against The Clock is a series by Fact Magazine where artists are given 10 minutes in the studio and see what they come up with.

Fascinating.

Daily Links

Link	Description
Tangerine Dream - YouTube	My YouTube playlist of Tangerine Dream, mostly live concerts.

I have had the Keychron K3 for a month or so now and my thoughts on this device are still somewhat mixed. After years of using laptop keyboards, the Logitech K380 and the Apple Magic Keyboard the K3 takes some getting used to. The keys have of course got more travel and sit ...

Katie Kookaburra Katie is a long distance specialist who loves to climb hills. She posts regularly and has a large following of over 100k subscribers. One of my favourite channels and one that I look forward to new episodes of. Adam Watkins Adam is not the most ...

Ukmac.net has moved to Hugo CMS

I am currently doing a bit of tidying of old posts (fixing dates and youtube embeds) but hopefully this new iteration of my blog will be stable in the next day or so.

Ukmac.net is hosted on Github Pages, this article explains how to setup Hugo to work with Github. I am no expert on Github but it didn’t take me long to rebuild the site and replace the previous Jekyll version. Currently I am editing the site in Visual Studio Code which works pretty well thanks to the excellent built in Github integration.

Over the Christmas break I have been testing out a few different Linux Distros on a Microsoft Surface Go Laptop. This laptop was my test machine for Windows 11 but the experience was less than favourable, slow, unresponsive and noisy as the fan seemed to run pretty constantly.

After a brief test of Elementary OS then MX Linux I have settled on Pop!_OS. On this laptop Pop!_OS runs really well, performance is snappy and the fan rarely kicks in.

Testing this as a work machine for me means installing Microsoft Edge as my default browser. Unfortunately the Linux version of Edge is still missing Azure AD sign in and sync which is a real shame and surprising given that Windows and Mac versions have had this feature for a long time now.

Daily Links

Link	Description
Pop!_OS	Ubuntu based Linux

Badminton at Oakengates Leisure Centre with the kids this morning then a trip over to eldest’s new house to help with sorting the garden which was a tad overgrown. Still loving the iPad Pro and Apple Magic keyboard and so glad I finally overcame the reservations over price a...

More Obsidian testing Today I came across this article on MacStories in which Federico Vittici describes how he uses Working Copy and GitHub to manage his writing with iA Writer and Pretext. While I have been testing Working Copy I have tried creating a synced folder with th...

GitHub - dwarvesf/blurred: A macOS utility that helps reduce distraction by dimming your inactive noise

There are a number of apps in the store that will blur the background windows that aren’t in focus as Blurred does. Unlike Blurred most of them are paid for apps. Blurred is free and does its job well.

St Albans

I am staying at the Jury’s Inn in Watford and just back from evening meal in the bar that was pretty rubbish. I ordered burger and chips for £15. The burger was overcooked, dry and tasteless and the chips had been covered in salt ( which I dont eat on food ) so were pretty much inedible. I should have taken myself out into town to find somewhere to eat but after an early start and a long day I couldn’t be bothered and opted for the easy option of eating in the hotel. I’ll never learn, hotel food is generally pretty meh and often worse than that. Would have been better off with a McDonalds !

New Komoot Route This morning I did a 60K route planned on Komoot see this link for the full route. I really enjoyed this ride, most of the lanes were very quiet and I hardly saw any cars at all until I was quite close to home which was really nice. Komoot is a great way to ...