I’m writing this for anyone who wants to convert WAV to MP3 in Ubuntu, or do any other kind of sound file conversion for that matter, in the hope of saving you the frustration I went through.

The answer: Sound Converter. A really simple to use program that can be installed via Ubuntu Software Centre (or Add/Remove Programs on older Ubuntu versions).

I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to do this by searching Google, only to find loads of forum answers of people saying how to do it on the command line, when this obviously named quick and easy program was there all along. Hopefully this post will make its way into the Google results for “convert wav to mp3 ubuntu” and a few people will be saved from unnecessary command line fiddling at the suggestion of the uber-geeks.

In a recent announcement by Andrew Adonis (Transport Secretary) it was reavealed that the government will be funding electrification of two rail lines, London to Swansea and Liverpool to Manchester, at an estimated cost of £1bn. Electrification is estimated to make trains 30% more efficient to run, which means they are cheaper to run and produce less CO2.

What surprised me about the announcement was his mention of their estimate that the project will take 40 years to pay for itself. To me its a breath of fresh air for a government to be thinking about the long term future in this way, and commiting to investment that will pay off in the long term rather than only thinking as far as the next election.

The message to UK holidaymakers is clear: your only option is to fly.

When it comes to booking a holiday (summer or winter) the websites of most package operators are just not geared up to offer anything but flights. After a huge amount of scouring the net I found a couple of operators (Thomson and Crystal) offering ski holidays to the Alps by train, but their availability is far from obvious. To find them you have to start your booking as if you’re flying and select St Pancras as your “Departure Airport”. When it comes to summer holidays the number of rail packages appears to be zero.
Most people probably don’t even consider that there might be alternatives, but then I guess I’m not most people. While looking into doing 2 different trips recently I discovered that in both cases there were realistic alternatives in terms of convenience, but they were not necessarily sensibly priced or particularly easy to find or book.

Here are the two trips I looked into:
1 - Snowboarding holiday - Anywhere with snow
Alps by train last week of January: Train/accomodation/lift pass £550
Apls by train February half term: Train/accommodation/lift pass around £1,000
Going in January the price is actually pretty good, but unfortunately Rail Europe have cancelled their London to the Alps direct sleeper train this year, which leaves you with Eurostar who do have an overnight service but its seat only (no sleeper)

2 - Long stag weekend - Barcelona
Flight: £100
Train: £260 (inc sleeper)
This is a pretty good example of a destination that is fairly easy to get to by train from the UK (Eurostar London to Paris, Sleeper Paris to Barcelona) but the price difference means that for most people the decision to fly is a no brainer.

The new mobile phone directory service 118 800 has its own bad management to blame as much as the Daily Mail reader style email that’s been doing the rounds for the mass panic that’s occured over its launch. I’m not normally one to defend any company but I also hate the spread of mis-information.

Here are some facts:

1 - They don’t actually give out phone numbers.
If someone phones 118800 to find you, and you’re listed, you’ll get a call from the operator telling you the name of the person calling asking if you want them to be put through. If you don’t answer they can leave a voicemail. If someone searches for you on the website you’ll get a text with their details, then its up to you if you want to make contact.

2 - They only have your mobile number if you consented to it being passed around.
Their listings come from marketing companies and companies who sell lists of numbers, so they will only have your details if you signed up for something and ticked the “please pass my details on to other companies” box or similar.

3 - They won’t sell your details
I guess you’ll have to take their word for that, but it doesn’t make much difference if they do, because if they have your details, they must be available to buy from somewhere already.

4 - There’s no deadline for having your details removed.

Unfortunately for Connectivity who run the service they seem to have no idea how to manage their own PR, so the information is not currently available on their website because they’ve taken the whole thing offline. Also the BBC and Guardian articles’ explanation of how the service works are as clear as mud, adding legitimacy to the email that’s doing the rounds.

Thanks to Google you can see the explanation from their wesbite here.
Also you can read a statement by the company in their defence here

Sun Microsystems have a plugin for Word and the rest of MS Office that enables you to open and save documents in the standard Open Document Format, meaning you can more effectively exchange documents with people who use the popular Open Office or other ODF compatible software.

Now on version 3.0 the plugin supports Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007.

Click the link below to download the plugin from Sun
Download

There’s been a lot of chatter in the media over the last week or so about MPs expenses, mostly in relation to claims made for the cost of living both in their constituency and in London.

To me the solution is simple: instead of paying expenses for accomodation, provide them with state-owned accommodation in London for when they are attending parliament and pay their travel expenses for travelling between London and their constituency.

When looking into what expenses MPs are allowed to claim, I also noticed their basic salary is £63,291 which seems excessive.

I’d always got the impression that rail travel in mainland Europe was much more efficient, reliable and sensibly organised than it is in the UK. Maybe it is within a single country but from trying to book trains for a two week trip I discovered that the European rail network seems to have as much lack of joined up thinking and just as complicated a fare structure as there is in the UK.

The main failing as far as I can see is the lack of a single easy to use booking system. If you want to book online, the site you need to use depends on where you’re going. Rail Europe is not bad, but it doesn’t give results on many long distance searches, particularly ones that involve more than a certain number of changes. It also only has the larger stations in its database. For example London to Malaga which you wouldn’t think was too demanding gives no results, and directs you to phone the call centre. Looking up Paris to Malaga reveals that there is a handy overnight train on this route that you can get with a cabin for as little as £59, but if you wanted to go from London or Bristol, you probably wouldn’t have typed that in.
I’ve found the best sites for looking up long distance Euro rail travel are the German and Belgian national rail sites, which seem to allow searches between pretty much any UK/European station and another. The problem with these sites is that although they give routes and times they are unable to give prices for any journey that doesn’t begin or end in the site’s home country.

I’m trying to avoid flying these days, but the companies who provide the alternatives don’t make it easy for you.

These days there is a lot of talk in the media about Global Warming, and also a lot of information flying around about what people can do to lessen their contribution to the problem. The worst suggestion of all as to what people can do to lessen their contribution is Carbon Offsetting. This gives people the impression that they can carry on exactly as they are as long as they pay a bit extra, which is quite dangerous thinking when the reality is that people need to change their behaviour for us to have a realistic chance of stopping global warming before its too late. A prime example of this is driving. The message that people are receiving is that “doing your bit” involves buying a more efficient car, rather than not driving at all and catching the bus. I’ve seen an advert recently by the UK Department for Transport telling people how to reduce their C02 emissions, including making sure your car has the correct tyre pressure.

After an indepth conversation with my father on the causes and possible solutions to Global Warming, and seeing The 11th Hour on TV the following day, I’m more convinced than ever by the seriousness and need for urgent action to combat this problem. Many campaign organisations who are trying to combat global warming seem to focus their efforts on either preaching to the converted, or trying to convince people to petition governments to take action. My perspective on this is that petitioning governments is unlikely to be effective, because pretty much any decision made by government designed to combat global warming is not going to be popular, and the unfortunate reality is that the number one priority of most senior politicians is staying in power.

Carbon Dioxide emissions are caused by the combined actions of a large number of individual people. Getting people to change their behaviour is key to solving the problem. Campaigning to people directly to change their behaviour could well be more effective than trying to convince government to introduce measures to change people’s behaviour.

I think many people are resigned to it being such a big problem that there’s nothing they personally can do about it. If people can be convinced that its down to them to act, and given a clear and concise list of changes they can make in their lives to help out, this may be the best chance for real change.

After watching a documentary film called “Who Killed the Electric Car?” I started looking into electric cars and discovered one that most people don’t seem to be aware of, the Tesla Roadster. The Tesla is very different from most existing electric cars. Its a good looking sports car, it does 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, has a top speed of 130mph and can travel 250 miles per charge. Its a light relief from previous efforts that tend to be ugly, slow and not go very far between charges, an example being the G-Whizz. Tesla have proved that electric cars can be cool, and plan to follow it up in 2008/2009 with a cheaper, larger appeal family saloon car.

Links:
Who Killed the Electric Car
Tesla Motors