www.gamma.net.nz

So it has been a bit over a year since we started scratching around in the dirt in the Mapuia reserve. There is still a bunch of work to do, but we have 2 completed tracks and our Freeride/DH lite track is mostly rideable. 

• Conviction - 2 way - from the bottom of Darlington Road to the bottom of the Nevay Rd connector. 
• Boot Leg - 2 way - from the end of Conviction up an over to the Prison sign on Mapuia Road. 
• Jail Brake - down only - about 100m on from the Boot Leg exit and down onto Miramar Nth Road. 

The up hills are small chain ring, middle of the cluster type climbs. There are quite a few switch backs to keep things interesting on the way up. There is still a bit of work to do at the start of Bootleg/end of Conviction. That area goes through a stream so is a bit boggy. But we are just having too much fun digging big banked corners and other fun features on the DH

To celebrate our 1 year anniversary,  we are having a BBQ at the top of Jail Brake. 

BBQ - March 20 , 3pm

taken from Ben's email

""We are planning a BBQ on Saturday the 20th of March at area by the top of Jail Brake to celebrate the first year or so of the project.  Everyone is welcome.

WCC have kindly agreed to supply some sausages, a port-a-loo and hopefully some music.  They are also going to have a crack at cleaning up the area a bit more before the 20th.  We don't have the funding of the likes of the Makara Peak Supporters so any help is much appreciated :-). There will no doubt be some shuttle runs done too as well as plenty of folks riding loops of the park.

The BBQ is not just for those who have already been digging, but also for 'future helpers' and those that just enjoy the new facility.

As the Council will be there it would be handy for those of you who can find a little time to stop by to do so and say hi, as it will help show the profile and usage that the park is enjoying.  The area is very kid and kid-bike friendly for those of you who want to bring the family along""

For more information, check out the Miramar Track Project page on Facebook.

So I got off my arse and updated Don's script to put all tracks.org.nz content in one big KML file.

Looks great in Google earth as it contains all NZ now not just Wellington.

File is attached to this post.

During the week I commute between Luzern and Zurich by train.  Normally I do some work on the train, using the work issue laptop, but disconnected from the net.  For work we're stuck with Lotus Notes which has a reasonable offline mode, I can sync my mail when I get back to the office, it syncs with my Blackberry, it works mostly fine.  The problem was when I don't work I often want to send a personal email.  But I despise using my work email to send personal emails.  I used to compose the email in a text editor.

Recently Gmail has be brewing something in their labs.  It allows users to use Gmail offline.  This is seriously cool stuff!!  All you need to do is enable it and it will download all your emails to your local computer, this takes some time, but you can go offline before it is complete.  An icon is installed on your desktop and you can use this to access Gmail offline.  The offline version has no compromises.  You can do everything you can do while online, except, of course, things that require a connection like real-time chat.  You can search your email for keywords, and it is just as fast as when you are online.  When entering someone in the "to" field your favourite peoples names appear, like normal.  Attachments are included and can be "downloaded".  While offline an "Outbox" appears and this is where your sent mail is stored.

All you need to do is install gears.  It even works on IE, but I use it on chrome which I believe comes with gears built-in.

I highly recommend this one for those who want to use gmail on the go, without a network connection.

The map below is a 1.5MB KML file which openlayers seems to render quite happily with out making your browser explode. (chome is fine, firefox is not so fine). The full screen control is quite useful. If, like me you get frustrated with tiny little maps embedded in pages. Its the little button on the top right --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Openlayers itself has a bunch of nice features:

- It can pull the track names out of the KML and display them in tool tips.

- Full screen map (I know I said that already)

- Shift click selects a box and zooms into that, much faster than mouse wheeling forever.

- Can display maps from multiple sources google, openstreetmap etc

- There is feaure editing tool that allow you to draw lines and polygons

More details after the break

http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2010/jan/wellington/josh-wink-us

I had a great night on New years eve 1996 when he played in Perth. Unfortunately we wont be in town so will miss it.

From Claire Pascoe at Greater Wellington Region Council. I have signed up, you should too. The link she provides is broke, you should use http://www.gw.govt.nz/activea2b/ and http://www.gw.govt.nz/tools/

Hi all,

We're running a project at Greater Wellington called Active a2b which encourages employees in Wellington workplaces to walk and cycle to work. (www.gw.govt.nz/active )

We have set up a Bike Buddy scheme which matches new riders with experienced cyclists to try and get more people riding into work. We've had a fantastic response, with over 20 bike buddies and 20 bike mentors already signed up. We need more mentors though, so if you're happy to have someone tag along on your commute send me an email to active@gw.govt.nz and I'll add you to my map.

I rode in with a buddy last Friday and it was great. She hadn't ridden to work in 12 years, driving instead, but we got there in 13 minutes and I feel positive that it has prompted her to give it a go more often.

Thanks!

Claire Pascoe

Enter here: http://www.sswc10nz.com/

Wellington has a long way to go...

http://www.streetfilms.org/ciclovia/

From