My grandfather’s funeral was held today – he died last Thursday. This photo was taken during his WWII service in the Australian army.
service
Beginning with GMail
The link below is to a tutorial that looks at starting out with GMail – a beginner’s guide to Google’s free email service/application.
For more visit:
http://mashable.com/2012/09/27/gmail-beginners-guide/
Bulahdelah
So I was right about my day when I spoke of it yesterday. Not a lot going on today, so today’s post will be more about yesterday. I hope that makes perfect sense to everyone – it sounded even worse with the original way I was going to write it (I was trying to be clever, so went for simplicity in the end).
ABOVE: The Punt at Bombah Point BELOW: On the Punt
To get to Bulahdelah from Hole in the Wall, you need to go via Bombah Point and the ferry service there. I guess you could also call it a punt. Many people still call it that. Anyhow, as the pictures show, it doesn’t cover a great distance. How much is the charge for this journey – at the moment it’s $5.00 AU. Seems a little excessive for something that’s over in less than 5 minutes. Still, there is a wage to pay, maintenance, etc. Still, you wouldn’t want to be doing it too often. You do get a ticket though (see picture at right). 
The road to the punt isn’t too bad for an out of the way road. On the other side between the punt and Bulahdelah though… well, that’s a different story and is typical of gravel roads in this council area. It is full of large pot holes. The road from Hawks Nest to the punt is all sealed. You also go past the Pacific Highway upgrade near Bulahdelah and Mount Alum.
So arriving in Bulahdelah you enter near the old Court House, so I thought I’d stop and have a quick look.
The Court House isn’t open to the public too often. The note on the door indicated it was open on Saturday mornings, but I wouldn’t be too confident in what was on the note, it had been there for quite some time and was rather weather beaten. There are some old bits and pieces laying around the grounds of the Court House, from Bulahdelah’s logging and mining history. Being into history, I enjoyed having a bit of a look at these items, which you do see time and again throughout the region in various museums, parks and even in the bush. The whole region enjoys a similar history, particularly logging.
ABOVE & BELOW: Bulahdelah Court House
ABOVE: Mining History Relics BELOW: Logging History Relics
Following the time spent at Bulahdelah Court House, I decided it was time for lunch and if you follow me on Foodspotting or visit my profile page, you would know that I found a cheese and bacon sausage roll (from Bulahdelah Bakery – best bakery in the district) for lunch (I actually had two – naughty), while reading a newspaper parked out the front of the visitor centre. Why there? Well I decided I might as well grab some info. on some areas I’m thinking of visiting in coming days, as well as further down the track. I have a visitor centre practically next door to me, but since I was here I might as well pop in.
ABOVE: Bulahdelah Bakery BELOW: Bulahdelah Visitor Centre
So after that it was back down the highway and to Tea Gardens once again.
For more on Bulahdelah:
http://www.bulahdelah.net.au/
For more on Tea Gardens:
http://www.teagardens.nsw.au/
DAR.fm: Digital Audio Recorder
DAR.fm is simply put a way to record digital radio on the Internet and play it whenever you want. This service is currently in Beta, so it may play up from time to time. Having said that, it may well be a very useful service.
Visit DAR.fm at:
http://dar.fm/
FilzMail
Today’s link is to a site that offers a temporary email address which will expire after 24 hours. It is quite a simple service to use and is useful for signing up to a site without getting any Spam and the like.
Fore more, visit:
http://www.filzmail.com/
Memolane
Memolane has just recently opened its online doors to all. Memolane preserves your online memories in the form of a timeline by importing your activity on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and plotting them on a timeline. I have been using the service for some time and have to say that I’m really happy with what Memolane has come up with. I won’t try and describe the service any further, rather I will direct you to my Memolane page where you can observe Memolane is use.
http://memolane.com/particularkev
Sign up at Memolane by visiting:
SpyPig
Ever wonder if someone got your email? Perhaps you sent out some important information and need to be sure the recipient received it – how to be sure? SpyPig is an email tracking service that is free to use. Check out SpyPig at:
Grou.ps – Free, but Not Really
I haven’t posted for a few days on this Blog. Reason? I have been busy deactivating social networks and deleting information I have stored on the Grou.ps platform. I have also been advising members in these communities to do the same.
I was once an advocate for Grou.ps, despite the many problems that existed there, sure that the service was improving and there was great potential in the platform. Now I feel that I have been betrayed by a platform I defended and pushed. Why do I feel this? The service has decided to go premium – though there is a free option also. However, the free option removes the privacy and moderation that owners of Grou.ps communities were assured of. You can just imagine what will happen with spam and privacy under these circumstances. Added to that, the platform is plagued with performance issues and seemingly full of bugs (at least that has been my experience and that of many others in the support forums).
I will not be supporting Grou.ps and longer and withdraw all of my endorsements of their product. As someone in the support forum said, they don’t mind paying for a service that works. Neither do I, but there is also the issue of the bad taste left in my mouth as a result of the way Grou.ps has ‘betrayed’ their loyal members and users.
The Fridge
If you’re interested in setting up a group/community/social network, perhaps you might like to check out ‘The Fridge.’ The Fridge is a place where you can set up a free group/community/social network. There are plenty of places these days for setting up a group and/or a social network. You could of course try Google Groups, Grou.ps and/or Yahoo Groups. If you are happy to pay there are other possibilities including Ning. The Fridge is not a site I had even heard of until a few days ago, but it could be worth a look or worth experimenting with for a while.
A member of a Fridge group gets a personal profile, which has a wall similar to Facebook. You can also post a photo for your profile. It really is a very simple social network providing a very basic service. It really seems to be a way of having very basic communication with other members of the group. You can post a picture with a post. So basically it provides a secure and private place for communicating. I guess email really accomplishes the same thing to some degree.
Have a look at:
Gri.pe
If you would like to share with the world just what is annoying you today, then Gri.pe is the place for you. It is a social networking type of site, where you can share with the world your current gripe – particularly with a business or service provider. It’s actually an app you can use on your iPhone or Android device. Visit at:
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