Android apps for canal users - Part 5

In the final part of this series, I have some very simple utilities to recommend. Any canal user could well find a use for each one; boater, fisherman, walker or cyclist. I use them often. I love them for their sheer usefulness with simplicity.

First of all, the compass. And there are very many to choose from! This is less than half of Play Store's offering. 

I've chosen Smart Compass.

It does the job well, and without the clutter or unnecessary complexity that some have. Just be careful when using this - as with any compass - that you don't have any magnetic source nearby, which would result in a false reading. I have a magnetic catch on my phone case, which is a slight complication.

When we're out on the cut, I keep a log of where we moor at the end of each day. I do this in case we ever have cause to phone emergency services. Having readily to hand the details of where we are could be a life saver. And the best piece of information the emergency services can have is our grid reference, accurate to 10 metres. I use the Grid Reference app, again for its absolute simplicity.

It's not often we want to know how fast the boat's going. I expect walkers and cyclists don't often need to know their speed, either. But when we do want to know, like when we were on the River Trent last month, then we use this Speedometer app.

As the creators say of it, it does what it says on the tin. There are, as you might expect, loads of different apps which do much the same job, each in their own way.

While walkers might find the speedometer useful, much more so for them is the Pedometer. Boat crew doing the locking, with walks between locks as well as around them, will find the data this supplies interesting.

You can show it to your skipper at the end of the day, to boast how close you are having done the recommended 5 miles a day! Just like the other apps today, simple yet useful.

I hope this series has been interesting, useful. If you know of any other apps which might be useful to canal users, please tell us about them in a comment below.

Android apps for canal users - Part 4

If you're a boater, then you're going to get lots of opportunities to see a starlit sky untouched by the light pollution of towns and villages. Well, you will if the weather lets you. Night-time fishermen may well have the same opportunities. If you're interested in those stars, planets and satellites, then there are several apps to help you identify them, and to find out more about them.

The one I have is Star Tracker.

SkyView is another popular one.

There are several others, but they're all free, so you can try them all until you find the one that suits you.

TV reception on the move can be quite an issue. Whether you have a satellite dish or a standard Yagi aerial, aligning them for best effect can often be problematic. Enter the UK Aerial Alignment app.

Kantara doesn't have a Yagi antenna, so I don't use it. And I notice that only 327 people have downloaded it. Nonetheless, it has 4-star rating, and again, it's free, so you have nothing to lose!

For those of us with satellite dishes, there's Satellite Director. Over 26,000 people have rated this, averaging 4 stars. I've installed it on my phone, but haven't used it yet.

There are at least another eight such apps available free from Play Store.

Four more apps to show you, next post. Do any of you know any other apps which would be of particular use to canal users? Please let me know, and I'll include them here.

I like to think of myself as a bit of a writer

What bit, and of which writer, I cannot reveal. A few months ago, I published a book on Kindle and Lulu (a "real" book!). "A Friendly Guide to Exam Success". It was literally years in the making. Firstly, simply growing the ideas behind it, sharing them with students, getting their feedback. Then the actual writing, editing, refining. I finally think I've finished.

I think the cover's the worst thing about it! Lulu puts severe limitations on cover creation, but I decided to use the same cover for the Kindle version, for the sake of... Hmmm, I'm not sure. I'm likely to change my mind about that in the next hour or two. But don't be put off by the cover. The content is far better, I assure you.

The "Grumpy Old Teacher" handle was my nom de plume for years when I was writing a blog about the uses of ICT in teaching. It sort of stuck.

Anyway, if you know anyone who's starting GCSE or similar exam courses this year, or taking the exams this year, then please get them to have a look on Kindle (£1.99) or Lulu (£4.99).

A week with Steve and Jess

Well, while you're all complaining about the weather over the Bank Holiday weekend - the weather generally, in fact, the lack of summer and the preponderance of totally rubbish weather altogether - I'd like to remind you of the observation I made three years ago. Weather-forecasters need a new symbol for reporting their meteorological predictions.

They've not bought into the idea yet. I think they should wake up to the reality of the situation. They're really on a loser, aren't they?

The evening Steve & Jess arrived

We were out on the cut last week. Steve and Jess came on Friday evening of the Bank Holiday Weekend, and we headed out on Saturday morning towards the South Oxford Canal. It was our intention to get down to Banbury, and wind just beyond, as we did with Michelle last year. As it turned out, the holiday weekend brought out boaters by the throng, and we spent our first two days travelling slowly behind dawdlers, or passing moored boats slowly, as convention and politesse require. Monday wasn't so bad. I think they'd all got fed up with the BHW chilly dullness, and gone home. We weren't so easily put off, though. We are, all four of us, veterans of the rainy canal holiday experience. And we had a great time.

OK, so the photos aren't that inspiring. I didn't take many this time. On the occasions when I was locking, I forgot to have my camera with me. And when I wasn't locking, I was actually driving the boat, far too busy to think about anything else. Yes, unusual, I know. But Grace and I, though largely Grace, thought it would be a good idea for me to increase my proficiency at the tiller while Steve and Jess were at hand to manage the locks. It was actually a good idea, and I did more driving in that week than in all the past years of holidays and Kantara put together. It did me good. I raised my lock navigation experience from one to eighteen in just a few days, with little damage to the paintwork to show for it.

In the evenings, we played games and chatted lots. It was great. One day, we didn't move from our mooring until gone 2:00 in the afternoon, such was the awfulness of the rain. That delayed us further. But we weren't driven by the need to get to Banbury. Simply to cruise and enjoy ourselves, and enjoy each other's company. So it was that we winded at Cropredy on Tuesday afternoon, and wended our way merrily back, to arrive at Yelvertoft on Friday afternoon. Jess was due to have a very busy weekend with Said the Maiden, so they drove back to St Albans within an hour or so of being back in the marina.