After spending my uni years with my trusty Dell Studio 1535 – well I write trusty, that is aside from an intermittent INCREDIBLY LOUD fan problem I had to solve on at least a couple of occasions and the replacement batteries I needed to buy in order to keep using the computer – I decided I wanted a bigger screen so I could see two documents side by side.

Since I started work at Found six months ago I have had two monitors (although it should be noted here that they are entirely different aspect ratios and hence resolutions and height…) I started to have monitor envy at home.

Since my laptop has remained pretty static since I moved back home – no lectures or nearby computer lab to take it to – a desktop was the obvious choice. I spent far more money than I needed to on the computer opting for a Dell XPS with many of the upgrade checkboxes on offering gubbins I will probably not make use of for the next 3 years or so judging from my past gaming experiences*

The monitor was good value though – less than £130 from Amazon for a BenQ. Unexpectedly I had to resort to manually entering (i.e not from a drop down box) the screen resolution in to the computer though to get the desktop showing at a decent size.

So the computer arrived on Tuesday and it still has Windows Updates to install despite being restarted umpteen times yesterday. It came bundled with the usual crappy manufacturer software and a “reduced functionality” version of Microsoft Word and Excel 2010. I had a 2007 disk for the full Microsoft Office but for some reason this didn’t read, thankfully this one was covered as entering your licence key on the Microsoft website will let you download the full versions. Installation didn’t work until I had gone through a few update-restart sequences though and no explanation or warning of this was displayed. Of course once I had installed the version downloaded from Microsoft I then had to update it to Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 1, why this was not in the original download I do not know.

Google Chrome has a Sync option so I thought this would be a great way to transfer all my data whilst retaining it on my laptop for when I use that. Big mistake. Easy to setup but it didn’t work. My bookmarks went across but despite ticking the boxes to sync everything nothing seemed to even after updating Chrome, restarts, enabling and disabling the feature and changing settings several times. At one stage it decided to claim I had no passwords stored on my old machine – nice scare. In the end I just copied the darn password file across.

The computer came with the Dell Standard keyboard which lacks media buttons – something I obviously become accustomed to on my laptop but completely overlooked when looking for a new machine. This’ll need fixing sometime soon.

One smart thing I almost forgot – when I was setting up the computer and had connected to WiFi it told me it had found a printer. I can now print remotely to this if the computer it is connected to is on and it isn’t even a fancy printer. Nice!

*downloaded Command & Conquer 3 from Steam recently. Other top gaming titles include OpenTTD.

I’m sure I’ve seen plans for a renovation of the “civic quarter”, just north of this, before but nothing seems to have come of them.

Landscape architects BDP are behind this latest spruce-up-your-town plan and have set up a blog WhatIfWatford as part of the consultation process.

Over recent years through reports in the local paper there seems to have been somewhat of an obsession with reducing the size of the pond and talk of urban beaches and outdoor icerinks so I expect whatever happens we will see the pond shrink.

The consultation comes amid accusations from the Police that nightlife has left the town centre is out of control – still it appears the actions of drunken revellers have a lot to compete with for the prize of worst behaviour in Watford town centre.

Perhaps one of the most obvious changes in recent years in this area has been the overhaul of the underpass in summer last year. It is now brighter, lighter and actually not too ugly in its latest incarnation as a white walled “art gallery” showcasing scenes and people from around Watford.

The consultation boards can be found here. Designs are due to be completed by the middle of the year for feedback with work commencing in 2013.

Photos: Underpass – staticgirl, Pond- Jamie Moore. Both CC BY-NC 2.0.

Hang on a minute. Wasn’t this predicted for 2011?

What about 2010?

2009?

Yep.

Good content attracts visitors. Nothing new. I think people know this by now.

These photos cover my last semesters at University, my graduation, starting work at Found, various seasonal and local photos, skiing and lots of food. Most images have descriptive alt text.

The area of the bid which would have the greatest impact on the park is the plan for a large new “hub” building, or visitor centre, north-east of the paddling pools and playground area approximately where a wooden toilet block currently stands. This would house a park ranger base, cafe, indoor events space and education facilities. No details were given on the scale of this building, the only real visualisation being a photo of a wood-cladded building in another park. In general I think this is a good idea as the current facilities are rather dated and inadequate, though I wonder what kind of events would take place in the events space.

The 5 angular buildings directly adjacent to the paddling pools would be demolished and replaced with another building of similar size servicing the paddling pools.

There are in addition plans for the Shepherds Road entrance to the park. The Cha Cha Cha cafe could be extended and the nearby council unit demolished. A suggestion is made possible new playground for older children in the area between Cha Cha Cha and the basketball and hard tennis courts.

The bandstand, currently located outside Watford Central Library, could also return to the park from where it was removed several decades ago.

Also proposed is “landmark” for the eastern entrance of the park. Watford residents of more than about 40 will of course remember that the Cassiobury Park Gates once stood here which were unceremoniously and unpopularly demolished for the widening of Rickmansworth Road. From the rough sketches on display the Harlequin we are looking at something far less substantial and impressive – seemed like some concrete-looking pillars engraved with “Cassiobury Park” and adding more flower beds.

The consultation seemed very vague with ideas for improvements scattered throught the park and woodland area with only outline details on each individual proposal. My opinion from is that the council/design agency behind the proposal appear to be seeing how they can use up £5 million of money rather than aiming for any specific much-needed improvement.

For instance there is a plan to entirely re-do the Paddling Pools area with two larger paddling pools and fountains taking up a slightly larger area that currently – these were refurbished just a few years ago.

Other ideas include the restoration of Lime Avenue (sounded like cutting back of trees and undergrowth) and work to better link up Whippendell Wood with the rest of the park as well as work near the canal and improvements to other park entrances.

More unusual suggestions included the possible reintroduction of cattle(!), apparently this popular in London now, and a hydro electric power generation near to the weir in the nature reserve.

I didn’t see it on any of the display boards but talking to one of people presenting the proposal to shoppers today revealed a possible plan to remove the car park extension from the end of the tarmac car park and replace it on the lower side. Whether or not this would be a permanent concreting over of parkland I don’t know.

Apparently some .pdfs of the proposal will be available on the council website however they don’t appear to be online yet.

All in all I was rather dissapointed with the vague nature of what was on display today. Hopefully they’ll take the ideas that are best received and flesh them out in more detail before showing them again to local people before February when the proposal will be submitted for funding.

Each year fireworks are the big attraction on the Saturday nearest November 5th at the Watford Council organised event in Cassiobury Park.

Relative areas from counts of “bon” and “work” in referring keywords  - cc(0) clker.com

Looking at the search terms queried which resulted in a visit to CassioburyPark.info on November 5th showed that traffic sent by fireworks related keywords outnumbered that from bonfire searches by 33-to-1.

It isn’t all Fireworks though.  The bonfire remains but gone is the Guy Fawkes judging contest, and effigies of him or “celebrities”.  Along with the main display there is also an earlier Fireworks display for small children and a stage featuring music from local musicians.

“Sounds like the worst ‘firework’ display ever” writes Mike Duce on Twitter. (yF).

Traffic

For the past three years there has been a noticeable rise up to the day of the Fireworks display which has been the busiest day of the year.

Guess when the Fireworks were!

There has been massive year on year growth in the number of event related searches.  This year saw more mobile visits to the site on the day of the event than visits from all platforms to the site a year ago.

Comparing November 5th 2011 with a year earlier (November 6th 2010):

• Desktop visits increased 125%
• Mobile visits increased 398%

On November 5th 2011:

• 38% of visits were from a mobile device
• Heavy use of Apple devices saw Safari as the most used browser

What mobile devices are people using?
Apple devices are the most popular by far with traffic from iPods exceeding the total mobile traffic served from the SymbianOS, Windows, Nokia and Samsung operating systems combined!  They other devices aren’t all phones either with iPads accounting for about 20% of all mobile traffic.

The proportion of mobile visits which were made from an Apple device fell from 81% in 2010 to 73% in 2011 but this was more than offset by a 342% increase in the absolute number of iOS visits.

Keywords and Google Suggest

Continued evolution of Google Suggest and its ability to impact search queries is apparent with 3 of the top 4 search terms ending with “2011″ compared to just 1 ending “2010″ the previous year.

The average length of each referring search query also increased, from 2.8 in 2010 to 3.2 in 2011.

How does this compare to the rest of the year?
In every year for which Analytics has available data, there was a higher proportion of mobile visits on the day of the event than over the year as an average. This is unsurprising given there are few other times a year when there are tens of thousands of people in the park at a time.

Both the proportion of and absolute number of mobile visits are increasing year on year.   The growth in mobile traffic from 2010 to 2011 was 300%, and the proportion of visits made from a mobile device has risen rapidly from 9% in 2010 to 22% this year.
 

The site

There isn’t a separate mobile version of the site and truth be told I haven’t ever seen the site on a mobile phone other than my own.  I will have to try accessing it on some of the most popular devices to ensure that the site looks okay on them.
 

The Event

In the old days an “anything goes” approach was taken to bonfire building.  Nowadays it’s much smaller and pretty much all pallets.

Me standing in front of the large bonfire in 1999.

In the 1990s there was the Computacenter hot air balloon, glow sticks, sparklers, hot-dogs barbecued at various places and the crowds were held back by rolls of orange mesh fencing.  They even used to let cars park on the grass.

Nowadays the park resembles a building site by the end of the preceding week with large steel fences rather earirly erected around nothing but empty parkland in the days before the event.  The barbecues have been replaced with a semi-circle of professional catering trucks, a truck load of portable toilets are dropped off, the bonfire has moved up the hill, the fences further back and cars aren’t allowed to park near the event.

Don’t get me started on the Rainbow Festival.

A great quote on this doomsday subject too -

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

- Albert Einstein

Great advert!

A couple of months I bought a customised Ordnance Survey explorer map centred on my (parent’s) house. Costs £17 which is quite expensive but since it’s a one off, I know I’ll use it and the advert made me smile I went for it.

Sadly they don’t do laminated customised maps, and that price is the standard for a ‘normal’ laminated one. Of course getting a map centred on where I live means it’s now on the fold between two halves of the map!

Arriving on the small Carribean Island, which has a scarily high murder rate and little other apparent crime, Richard hates the sun, sand and sea and has to cope living in a “house” with a tree growing inside it.

Used to working with the well resourced Metropolitan Police DI Poole, now has to deal with dashing around the island in the forces’ single aged Landrover Defender with a motorbike and sidecar as the only backup.

With a forensics department now accessible only by boat or plane and a force that does everything manually he was never going to get on well, but does a remarkably good job at identifying murderers in the first two episodes.

Each episode follows the same who-dun-it pattern. A murder takes place at the start, the detectives go in and investigate clues and leads. With the help of flashbacks the story is re-pieced with a second murder helping the final pieces of the case get wrapped up until DI Poole is able to reveale the murderer and how they went about it in front of all the suspects.

The latest episode featured a bride murdered on her wedding day. Suspects included her new husband and his best man who both knew she was in to money on her wedding day. Things are futher complicated by family rifts, a prenuptial agreement that wasn’t actually signed and a diving instructor and jealous sister.

A good show – not just a jaunt in Guadeloupe for the BBC!

Episode 1 on iPlayer