Arriving 2 weeks before the day of Santa coming down the chimney, the quadricopter was sitting down doing nothing. The only thing to do before xmas was charging the battery. This was not my pressy, but it was something I wanted to play with asap (Before @Richardbarrow basically)!

 

As the name states, its not your normal helicopter; its actually classed as a drone.

 

The Parrot AR Drone - This thing is very cool!

Fitted with 4 propellers to make this baby hover smoothly, it is equipped with a fairly decent quality camera on the front, which is able to film, view live and even upload to youtube after flying. But to be able to record inflight, you have to buy the app, which is now £2.99 (App Here). 

Controlling it with either your iphone or ipad, you connect to its own wireless network before flying. Yes, putting it into airplane mode before flying is a safe bet as getting a call from your mum whilst flying would be a bit annoying. 

If the app crashes or you receive a phone call, it will stop, stablize and balance in mid air. Wheras, If you exit the app, it will bring itself down and land itself using its bottom camera for stabilisation (don't trust that in snow btw, it does not like all white).

 

Starting off is best done with the foam body designed to protect the blades whilst flying. The foam is meant for indoors to stop the blades hitting any objects. (Although we used it outside as we broke the outdoor hull after taking off the limiters).

The app has a great UI, its simple and easy to use. Putting your thumb on the left hand side of the screen turns on the accelerometer allowing you mirror the orientation of the phone to the drone. Right hand is a little different, if you drag up & down the altitude changes, left and right changes the yaw (turning left and right). 

Starting up is simple, press a button at the bottom, it automatically starts up and hovers about 1m off the ground. 

Landing is equally as simple, same button and it smoothly drops in altitude, bringing it to a soft landing. Also, top middle has an emergency stop button, but this simply kills the motors and therefor all control (Only use this if u are nearly hitting your wife's face, and only then do you use it). Here is a video of the inbuilt which you kind of see live on the iPhone. 

After a few charges and flights, it gets very easy to use and lots of fun. As we stated earlier, there are limiters set up as default designed to stop beginners going sky high and losing it on their first flight. These can be turned off in the AR Drone App settings. (Only do this if you are very confident)

We turned them off and straight away, it was in a tree about 25 metres up. After several objects thrown up and also stuck up their, a golf club wrapped with some string dislodged the drone and it was caught on the ground. Sadly for the golf club (PW), its still up there. @Ireallydohate even had a go hitting golf balls at it, nearly hitting it, but failed!

 

Even tho it fell through a tree for about 20 metres, the camera was snapped, but still in perfect working condition (Obviously with some tape).

 

If two people get the chance to fly their drones together, you can have a battle in flight between each other. Here is a small clip of the game you can play against another drone user. This is done by using object recognition on the front camera, it is able to detect another craft by its colors, thus enabling you to be able to fight it out with another drone. Preview Video here from AR Drones Youtube:

 

I liked the little design feature of putting an H on the bottom of the box it comes in, nice little helipad to land it on.

 

Here is a little Q&A with @phiebs after using it for a few weeks:

 

Q1. Whats the best thing about your new toy? 

A1: It finally allows me to fly a aircraft without crashing it 5 minutes later. Its has a computer to sort out all the stabilisation thus hovering is taken care for you. When you move the controls, your telling the computer to allow it to move forwards. In a nutshell, the computer is doing all the grift work and you get the pleasure of flying it.

Q2: Is the battery that bad like forums are saying? 

A2: Yes and no. Yes if you want to fly it for a whole day without breaks. No when you consider what its doing. Having its own Wifi network, 4 fans going at a pretty high rate & 2 cameras being fed back to iPhone. It takes about 2 hours to charge up from flat to full and you get a good 20-25 mins of flying time. 

Q3: Is it true you can use other normal batteries with it?

A3: Not tried it yet, the connections are the same but I don't see why not. Even a higher capacity battery could work.

Q4: Any tips to tell beginners before using the drone? 

A4: Don't turn off the safety features (Limiters), leave everything on default!! Take care when flying outside and on snow. 

Q5: Are the cameras good? 

A5: They are adequate, I think there is a lot of room for improvements, but it does not detract from the enjoyment. Although, It becomes really apparent when using the drone with the iPad.

Q6: Have you been able to strap on any other cameras to the drone? 

A6: Managed to put a GoPro on top of the drone, it does affect the flying performance and also stability, but get a great shot of wherever your flying. Placing it right in the middle with tape without the housing, it was ok to fly.  

I hope this helps anyone wanting to buy one of these.

How to Buy:

For people in the UK, you can buy them here at the AR Drone website for £299. 

For any Thai's reading this, here is a paragraph taken from a review of the drone from inside Thailand, by @Richardbarrow on his iPhone blog:

"Yesterday I was shopping at Paradise Park on Srinakarin road when I saw a large display for these drones. Surprisingly the Parrot AR Drone is now officially being sold in Thailand. The price in Thailand is 12,990 baht ($430). This is more expensive than America which is 9,014 baht but cheaper than the UK which is 14,004 baht. Of course you have to pay shipping and possibly customs on top of these prices."

Two friends were given 24 hours to decide on their future plot of land for a new restaurant in Thong Lor. Situated in the newly built Grass complex between soi 10 & soi 12 (Fat Guts is at the front), they have risen up to a restaurant in 6-8 weeks!

Serenade is located a few metres up from the entrance on the left hand side, with its grass coating around the building. It only took me an hour to figure out the reason for grass being stuck around the side of the buildings (Face to palm moment). After speaking to @Richardbarrow about whether it was fully open yet, I gave one of the chef’s a call and they were open, just not officially as the grand opening would be the 28^th of October.

When we arrived, you walk on to the main deck which has a chilling area where you can lay down and have a few drinks. Timber, the main chef, greeted us and gave a quick tour of the place they had built up from scratch.

We sat outside which is why some of the pictures were not great, so apologies in advance. I’m sure I will be back during the day so I will update the blog when I do!

Small starting dish they give to get the flavours going in the mouth (I asked them what it was but I have forgotten as it was a freestyle dish by Eric): 

Espresso Charred Tuna (My fav): 

Lovely bit of Argentinian Strip-loin in red-wine sauce:

Really nice Wittekerke beer (Buy 1 get 1 free at the moment): 

After the meal, we sat down with the 3 main chefs and conversed about the place they had created. Timber (left), Eric (Right) & May (Middle) explained that in the kitchen, they do not really work on a hierarchy system you would normally find in a kitchen. They work together to produce the food, mix and create new dishes, which are criticised and analyzed by the other two.

While talking with Erik, May brought over a dish he had been working on, it was great to see a dish in the making and how they decided on properties. We had the chance to taste some dishes that were not on the menu, which was a delight!

Both Timber & Eric wanted to express how much they wanted customers to walk away feeling the comfortable atmosphere, delicious meal and value for money. I have to say, even with a coupon, the food that you get compared to the price was incredible. I had to ask them after how they are able to do this, they simply replied they did not see the point putting a huge mark up on food. One great aspect of the menu is they add all service charge/vat onto the prices as they hated getting bills and having extra charges added onto each plate.

After the grand opening, they will be changing the menu on a regular basis so there will always be new dishes to try if you come back the following week. Delivery might be available, but was not an ideal option when asking Timber. He said maybe Thong Lor and the back soi’s, but sending the food to the outskirts of town would not be an option. The reason is the fear of the food losing its wanted taste/look after 30 minutes being chucked around in a motorbike bag.

The restaurant is also a wine bar, although the upstairs is still not 100% complete, they still have a large range of wines to choose from.  They have a full range of cocktails, all made between themselves with some outside help from a barman. I’m pretty sure they do not want to try any more cocktails after a week of tasting!

It was a real pleasure going for a night here, the food was delicious, service was excellent and the atmosphere was simply comfortable. They will be fully functional and opening after the 28^th of October, which will be just in time for their Halloween party on the 31’st. With lots of food placed around the restaurant, drinks flowing and DJ’s playing some music, it sounds like a good night. You can get a ticket from the place, or give them a call.

A big thanks to @RichardBarrow for the coupon & letting me know about this place. Also thank you to Timber, Eric & May for great food, service and company. I will be back soon for the espresso charred tuna!

Location: Thong Lor Grass Sukhumvit 55 (Soi Thong Lor) - Walk in the arch and its a few metres on the left.

Website: www.SerenadeBKK.com (Still under construction)

Twitter: @serenadethonglo

Telephone: 02-713-8409

 

 

Here are two of the blogs I did over at Thai-blogs whilst the redshirts were out in force over April/May this year. Lots of pictures and first hand accounts :)

So Far at the Warzone of Silom

Thursday Night, The Real War Zone

 

I was not sure what time to wake up on sunday the 19th, there were many different times shooting around the media. 10am, 9am, 5pm were the times given when the redshirts would be at Ratchaprasong to mark the anniversary of the 2006 coup.

Waking up to a few tweets from @vaitor saying there was around 200 reds at Democ Monument already (9am), I thought there must be some around Ratchaprasong.

Arriving at Chit Lom BTS around 10:20, there were roughly 200 redshirts already standing on the corner where the sign is situated. Opposite them on the Central World side were another group of about 50-100. The sign had already got lots of red banners and roses on it, whilst red shirts pray towards it. 

Turning around after some shouting going on behind the sign, some redshirt theatrics were going on, reinactments of the lives that were lost early on this year.

I had only been down in the area for about 15 minutes and already the crowd was increasing.

Had the same old conversation with a redshirt who wanted to let a farang know what the government had done, must of heard this over 100 times since being in the red areas these past months. The guy on the right told me, “wait until 5pm, then we will block the whole intersection, the whole area, light the candles and let balloons go. it will be great”. I asked him how many people do you expect to come, 5000+ was his reply.

After meeting up with @richardbarrow, there was some confrontation between the police & redshirts. The police drove their truck with loudspeakers to read off some rules for the redshirts. That did not go down well with some of them, but Sombat and other redshirts calmed them down and broke it up.

Made a little trek over to the other side, where the pack of redshirts were starting to spill over in to the road below central world. Lots of singing and chanting was coming from this side, using the central world heart as a drum!

11:30 – The redshirt numbers were increasing by the minute, the CTW side had moved on to the road already and were pushing out every 20-30 mins. It was well organised how they would take over a lane at a time, I said to Richard – give it an hour or two, and the place will be blocked.

One of the main attractions for the redshirts was the Seh Daeng lookalike going around the groups with secutiry. They even did some theatrics later on in the day.

Khun Sombat arrived and many people were taking pictures with him, I was quite embarrassed that I did not know who it was until some tweeple informed me.

Went for some healthy food over in the Macdonalds, which was already full of redshirts eating and creating signs. I just needed some aircon as it was extremly hot that morning/afternoon!

At 12:15 when I left macy d’s, the party truck had arrived. Fitted with some pretty big sub’s, the music was turned up and people were in the middle of the road dancing.

The police came over after 2 of the lanes had been taken up by redshirts, that did not go down too well with one-redshirt women. Once she started shouting, a lot of others came to give their point. By this time a group had formed around the police and the redshirts pushed out on to the whole road. It was their chance to take all the lanes, but were pushed back by other reds.

A large motorbike convoy had arrived which had been tweeted by some people, and it was big!

12:30 The sign by this time was full of red decorations, people had surrounded it with banners and baloons.

After meeting some tweeple, @babyfishie, @forestmat, @thaifaq, @thaicam. @lindavanderwijk, the riot shield police had started to emmerge. They made a long line from the sign corner, all the way down to the mid skywalk. They were facing towards the redshirts and not really paying attention to the reds on the opposite side.

I went up to the skywalk because I could feel that the crowds were getting pretty large, and would definatly try to block all the lanes. Here is a picture timeline from 14:00 to 14:20. As you can see, the riot shield police just ignored what was going on behind them.

15:00 There was only just 1 lane of traffic open. The police, by this time, had given up trying to direct traffic and yet again, the redshirts became the traffic police.  It baffled me why people would even try to drive through this area on a day like this.

By this time, there must have been about 5-6000, it was like a festival atmosphere, everyone was singing and dancing. And ofcourse, the normal chants of “i-hea, ook pei”. Sombat was driving around on a truck with speakers, which ended up at the Urban Space a little bit down the road.

The speaker for today, Sombat, was sitting on his truck talking to the huge crowd outside Urban space, facing the ‘being rebuilt’ Central World.

16:00 The red balloons had started to appear and the huge crowd of reds were holding them high, ready for letting go. It was incredibly crowded under the intersection where the music was coming from. Another party truck had arrived.

A chalk outline of a redshirt life that had been lost was drawn on the floor, with red ribbons and canles placed inside it.

We all remember the baby-sitting on the tyre roadblock back in May from @freakingcat. There were quite a few redshirt babies at this anniversary. Most were sleeping which I found strange because of the huge volume the redshirts were getting up to.

Another one was a small kid standing on the bonnet of the police truck on the other side of the intersection, which redshirts had surrounded. It was blasting out music and often had speeches going through its huge speakers.

16:30 was the time of the balloon spree, thousands of red balloons were let off into the Bangkok sky, it was quite a sight.

16:40 After thinking what the redshirt had said to me in the morning, 5000+ would be attending, he was not wrong! A few of us estimated around 8-9000 during the peak of the event.

The normal weather for the redshirts had been delayed for a few hours; it was only by 17:00 when the clouds opened up and raid fell down on Bangkok.

After occupying a shelter underneath gaysorn for 20 minutes, I came back to a web of red lines. It was as if a red spider had gone through the crowd and weaved around them. The first thing that came to mind was, who on earth is going to clean that up! It kept growing over the next 30 minutes.

I headed home at around 6pm, Sombat was going around the crowds telling redshirts to leave and it was only an hour and a half until the kick off between Liverpool/Man U. Well this is what I saw and experienced over the Sunday aniversary of the Coup, a huge number of redshirts, lots of subs, speakers & red ribbons filled up the Ratchaprasong area. One of the strange things about this day was walking into other tweeple every 30/40 mins. With the amount of people there, it seemed pretty strange. It was more frequent bumping into @RichardBarrow, it was like we were drawn to the same places at the same time to take some pics. 

 

Many a times have I been in the taxi back from a night out going past Thong Lor, most restaurants are shut and the only 24/7 delieverys are Macy D's or Sunrish Tacos. Living around On Nut, there is quite a select amount of food places that would be open until 3am. I got introduced to this litte food street last year by @nattiekhe after a night out, where we went to get some bamee.

Most of the time, we end up stopping underneath Thong Lor BTS to go grab a bite to eat on sukhumvit 38. Im sure many people living around the area would know whats on offer, but some (@tulip_oum) do not so I thought I would shed a bit of light what you can get here.

The first thing you spot is a middle aged Thai man in a beanie, cooking over a large-flamed stove. The food is almost flame grilled when you taste it. 

This little area is the first on the right hand side of the street (where I eat mostly), it has a small area where you can sit down, get a drink and order your food to eat there. Its quite busy after midnight, but you can usually find a seat. 

The first is the normal Thai food stall that you find on every street, huge variety of meats, fish and veg that will cook almost anything that has rice with it. My favorite is the Kapao from here, but that’s just my opinion. They also do some great Pad Thai. Im not sure why the prices are a little bit higher (could be the area) than most places, most rice dishes are 40/50 baht and 10b for an egg.

Fruit smoothies are sold opposite, almost every fruit can be choen, and they are pretty good! They also serve beer from this stall which can be good for a few more drinks while the bars have shut and 7/11 stop serving past midnight (I really do hate that rule!).

The last two are the ones that get most of money, the mango & bamee stalls. You can order some mango with sticky rice accompanied by some white coconut sauce.

Opposite is the Bamee place, which is the favorite dish from this area. You can three types dishes, the normal bamee with moo daeng, with Keo or Crab. Or if your feeling hungry – get them all in one dish with Bamee.

Walking further down the street, there is a selection of dishes, from the normal Thai deserts to noodles with pork blood & green veg. Here are some of the stalls you can find down the street.

This stall has some nice Tao Hoo. They also have stuff from Ayutthaya, but I'm not sure exactly what (maybe some1 can enlighten me).

This needs no introduction, Khao Man Kai, A favourite among Thai's. 

Thai Deserts such as Bor-Loi or Salim, lots of choice.

This is another Bamee-Keo stalls futher down the street, pretty good but does not beat the first one for me. 

They do a delicious Pork Satay in here, with lots of other goodies

Fish stomach with red pork, not a dish that I would eat, but seemed very popular. Im sure @Richardbarrow can add it to his list of foods to eat for his Streetfood-challenge!

Most of the street stalls start up around 7pm and normally shut at 3am. So if in the Thong Lor area and feeling hungry, this is a great place to find some food. 

 

I have been living around On Nut for the past year or two and enjoyed the food thats on offer from all the different stalls. One of my favourite meals to get from the market was a variety of fried chicken & pork with some rice. The market that is being referred to is just down from the BTS station at On Nut, opposite Tesco Lotus (Soi 50).

But ever since the end of last year (2009), On Nut's main food market contract had run out and the land was up for sale again, but at a higher price. According to some of the stall owners, the previous owners could not afford it and did not renew the contract, which meant a lot of the stall owners had to shut up shop and move on (my favorite stall disapeared over night, sad times).

I have to say, seeing the market go, created the other pieces of land to grow at a faster rate, which are now much cleaner, organised and a more comfortable environment to eat. Once the old market had all gone, the plots of land to the side of it started to grow, and obviously become a popular place to buy food. There was already a bar & small clothing market to the left side of the market just shut, the normal environment of a thai clothes outdoor market.

Next to this (in-between the shut market) was another small outdoor bar that popped up out of nowhere. It was in similar taste to the one next to it, but looked a bit more modern, better tables and chairs. It had one or two food stalls at the front, but not a lot inside.

We used to goto the bar to the left of the old food market, which was kind of an on nut market/2, but more to do with clothes and not food. It had no roof, just the same as the new bar in-between, right in the middle of the land with tables and chairs around it. Infront of the bar was a row of food stalls, ranging from bamee, khao man kai, pork satay and the normal rice-serving place. It was a nice place to sit and drink, but whenever it rained – it was pretty impossible to sit anywhere other than the bar, which had a small roof.

Lets jump forward to September the 12^th, 2010, a lot has happened since then! Proper pavilion style roofs have been placed on both markets; they both have very organized bars with great service and some great selection of food.

The left side’s bar had another revamp a few months ago, taking out the wooden bar, and replacing it with a glowing, light filled bar to the side. It gives much more space for tables and chairs. On downside about this bar is the TV, it’s a small LCD, which is quite hard to see from the back, and could do with a larger one considering their size. 

My personal favorite is the 2^nd market (right side) because of the larger selection of food and the bar is slightly cheeper. It has some pretty loud speakers which can get annoying so sit far away if you dont want Lady Gaga blasting in your ears (Yeah, the normal Bkk music played here, plus your thai country music). If your lucky, you will get to witness some of the drunk thai guys dancing to the luktung, its quite entertaining to watch!

At the front of the right market, there is a (always packed) pad thai stall which cook in huge batches and serve them out in one go. I don’t think I have ever seen this place have any pad-thai after they serve out a batch; it always has hungry customers.

Next to the pad thai is a stall that serves everything to do with chicken, from whole to breasts. Next to this is a huge batch of fried pork that can be bought with a side of sticky rice (not as good as my old place, but it will do).

Next stall that you will see is the large selections of fruits, which can be found on the corner of any soi in Thailand. Next to this is the table with different varietys of spring rolls. These are quite nice, but very oily.

Getting towards the middle of the martet, you can get a cheap meal of Khao kha moo (Pork leg). I do enjoy this dish from time to time, one dish costs 30baht (remember, if you don't like the fatty bits, order it and say 'mai sai man').

Just down from this stall is another one of my favourites, Pla Pao (pretty much bbq'ed fish). They cook these over a coal fire for quite some time, a very tasty dish; one fish can do two people for 100baht. Little tip, the exact same dish can be brought at the left side market for 150baht at the front, so I would advise to get the fish from this stall, which is on the right side in the middle of the' second market (tastes better too). This stall also does the suki style pots that you cook your own meat/fish/veg in.

If you are not really up for some Thai food, there are 3 or 4 stalls sitting next to each other doing some American food. It wont be like your steak house back home, but you will get a nice cut piece of fried pork/chicken with some chips. These places have very reasonable prices for a dish and quite delecious.

Only a few months ago has there been a new bar pop up in front of the main bar (the one that popped up quickly next to the original On Nut Bar. It’s a small bar specializing in cocktails, which could be the reason why the nae of the bar is called ‘The Cocktail’ (very creative indeed *sigh*). They also do a small selection of food, I tried the fish and chips last week and was not that impressed.

Maybe being from UK, I was expecting a huge piece of cod with chips wrapped around a newspaper, but it was a 3 tiny bits of fish each in a huge wod of batter. Oh yeah, and 3 chips! The onion rings were the same, but again, too oily for my liking. Always ask for mayonaise if you are expecting it because they have it; just never give with the food. Here is the small menu at the Cocktail bar. 

The towers at both of the bars are pretty cheap being a street bar, around 420-550 for leo, singha or heineken. The second bar does some imported beer also, but I have forgotten the names. If you are a Stella fan and fancy a bottle, the ‘Cocktail’ bar sells bottles.

If your a pool fan and want to play a few games, go into the second market (right side from sukhumvit road) and walk right to the back, they have 3 tables that were just put in and are still in good condition considering where they are. Just behind those are the toilets, nothing too fancy though, and cost's 3 baht per person. 

There are lots of other small street food stalls, ranging from mushroom soup, moo tod, somtum and some thai deserts. It is a nice place to relax, get a few drinks and food with friends if your not looking for a heavy expensive night.

We all have tried to use various programs to clean our mac's up, trying to squeeze that little extra MB from files we don't need. Yes, you can go through it manually with WhatSize deleting any large chunks of data, or getting rid of an application using Appzapper, but this program did a little bit more than that.   

CleanMyMac has to be my favorite of the "cleaning" programs, mainly because of one very usefull scanning tool, "Language files". Every program has its different language setting, and looking at the list below, they can start to build up. This scan below was only on Thai language files, which obviously is not going to accumulate lots of space, but the other european ones do!

I had 19 languages being scanned and managed to free up at least 3gig's worth alone with these. You can imagine, with 100's of applications installed, and a possible 19 different languages, thats a lot of wasted disk space if you are never going to read the program in Korean or Mandarin. 

The other main features that are scanned are Caches, Logs, UB's, System junk, and trash leftovers. It also has some utilities that come along with the program, uninstall applications, quick erase files and manage extensions. 

A big thumbs up for this program, highly recommended for any mac user looking for a few extra gig to spare up. Visit the Macpaw website to start cleaning up your mac!