Send real letters from the Internet to anywhere in the world.
# Sunday, 02 March 2008

blogoftheweekThis weeks Travel Blog of the Week  is Location Independent Living. Ever grown tired of the usual rat race? Working 9 to 5, five days a week to earn a salary to pay off your mortgage and eventually retire on a good enough pension and live the good life? Well this blog was started by people who didn't want to live that sort of life, they wanted to live a good life now and from anywhere in the world.  So they sold all of their worldly possessions to travel the world and set up a location-independent business. This blog is here to help anyone else who wants to live this kind of live, it is also quick to add the caveat "without being a millionaire". To me this ensures people do not mistake this site as a get rich quick scheme but as a new way of living.

lipAn article I found interesting had the rather humorous title "How To Travel The World Working With Your Other Half And Not Split Up (Or Kill Each Other)". It covers the challenges facing couples who choose a Location Independent Lifestyle. One example it gives is the insecurity you might feel not being in your home town or close to friends to talk to instead of having to talk to your partner all the time. One solution it gives is to make new friends and to make use of online social networks to talk with friends.

posted on Sunday, 02 March 2008 23:42:00 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback

A scheme to help cut the cost of ferry journeys to and from the Western Isles has been announced by the Scottish Government. It currently costs £140 for the return car ferry from the mainland to Stornoway with local people saying this cost holds back tourism and development. The new scheme which will run as a pilot will cost £22 million to operate over three years but could see the cost of journey cut by a third. The routes chosen for the trial are Stornoway to Ullapool, the routes between Uig on Skye, Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy in North Uist and the routes linking Oban, South Uist, Coll Barra and Tiree.

posted on Sunday, 02 March 2008 15:30:54 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Saturday, 01 March 2008
First Great Western is in danger of losing its franchise because of poor service standards. Transport secretary Ruth Kelly has ordered FGW to buy more carriages, increase passenger compensation payments and hire more staff. If these demands are not met the franchise will be terminated. First Great Western was voted the worst service in Britain last month and has misled passengers by underreporting the number of cancellations last year. Instead of fining the franchise Ruth Kelly has instead imposed an improved package on it which includes compensation for customers affected by punctuality problems.

posted on Saturday, 01 March 2008 18:55:33 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Friday, 29 February 2008

Aberdeen Airport has been named the industry’s most improved by the Airports Council International (ACI). The title goes to the airport that has managed the biggest improvement in overall customer satisfaction. The quality survey was based on data from 200,000 questionnaires which were completed by passengers in 2007.

posted on Friday, 29 February 2008 16:08:37 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Thursday, 28 February 2008
The world’s first commercial aircraft to be powered partly by biofuel took off from Heathrow on Monday. The Virgin Atlantic 747 flew from London to Amsterdam using a 20% biofuel mix of coconut and babassu oil in on of its four fuel tanks. Sir Richard Branson said the flight was the first step towards using biofuels on commercial flights. However, climate change experts have criticised the flight as a publicity stunt. Kenneth Richter, Friends of the Earth aviation campaigner, said: "Biofuels are a major distraction in the fight against climate change.

posted on Thursday, 28 February 2008 14:22:33 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Tuesday, 26 February 2008
British Airways passengers could face severe disruption at Easter unless talks to avert strike action by pilots are successful. BA and the British Airline Pilots Association have agreed to take their dispute to a mediator after 3,000 BA pilots voted for strike action. The action could take place anytime over the next 28 days as long as pilots give at least seven days notice. If strike actions were to go ahead it could affect 100,000 BA passengers a day.

posted on Tuesday, 26 February 2008 09:09:42 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Monday, 25 February 2008

PC2Paper are proud to present our latest offering, the PC2Paper Printer. It quite simply makes sending letters from your PC as easy as printing to your desktop printer. We have released the printer as a beta to allow customers to test the service and offer their feedback.

Once installed the PC2Paper Printer will appear on your PC as a normal printer.

PC2PaperPrinterOnComputer

If you want to send a real letter from the Internet, you can do so directly from your desktop PC. Open up your favourite word processing program, type a letter and select print to send your letter.

PrinterSelect 

Selecting print will bring up the following dialogue box that will enable you to enter the receivers address and select your postage options.

PC2PaperPrinterDiagBox

To get started on the beta version of the PC2Paper Printer click here

posted on Monday, 25 February 2008 22:08:08 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
National Air Traffic Services (Nats) plans to change flights paths in and out of major UK airports to try and reduce the impact on urban regions. The proposals aim to reduce by 20% the number of people that are affected by departing aircraft flying below 4,000ft. The plans will mean a reduction in the number of flights. It will also mean that some rural areas will experience higher noise levels. Several towns including Southend, Sudbury, Hitchin, Hatfield, Princes Risborough and Royston that currently have high levels of noise should see a reduction. The plans will affect Heathrow, Stansted, Luton and London City and are the first overhaul of routes for several decades. The new routes will be brought in around spring 2009.

posted on Monday, 25 February 2008 13:32:31 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 24 February 2008

blogoftheweek_thumb This weeks travel blog of the week is Honeymoon Around the World written by Steve and Christy. It follows their progress as they take time out from their jobs for an extended honeymoon travelling around the world. Their journey starts in June 2007 with their wedding in Mexico and then heads to Iceland, Europe including Ireland, England and Italy and then onto Africa before heading to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and eventually New Zealand.

grasshopper There is a lot of interesting content on this blog but for  me a few posts stood out. The first from their time in Thailand is about the interesting food available at the street markets. One vendor was selling an interesting mix of fried bugs including meal worms, grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches. Steve and Christy were brave enough to sample the fried grasshopper (pictured left) with Steve describing it as a "a fried mass of legs of body".
 

bat_thumbnail

Another post also on the subject of unusual food highlights the options available at a local  market in Laos. Here, Steve finds an appetising selection of fried rats and fried bats. Although Steve was not planning on purchasing anything a fellow tourist offered him a bat. Apparently you do not need to add sauce to enjoy a fried bat (pictured right), you simply eat it as it is. The verdict was that it tasted like chicken. Despite trying the bat Steve stayed away from the other delicacies preferring not to sample the fried rat or surprisingly the coagulated cow blood. I can't imagine why it all sounds very tasty.

posted on Sunday, 24 February 2008 15:39:59 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
Travellers at Heathrow were affected by a complete break down of Terminal 4’s baggage handling system on Wednesday. Economy class passengers who arrived at the terminal were told they could only take hand baggage with them meaning they either had to leave their luggage behind of miss their flights. Around 4,000 passengers were affected by the problem, with most of them decided to switch airlines or postpone their trip rather than leave their luggage behind. The problem was caused by the automatic baggage sorting system breaking down because of a software failure. It is now the 10th time the baggage handling system has broken down since last May.

posted on Sunday, 24 February 2008 12:46:39 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Saturday, 23 February 2008
An engine fault has been ruled out as the cause of the Heathrow crash a few weeks ago. The investigation also found that the engines had not been hit by a bird or a piece of ice. The news means that the investigators are still no closer to solving the mystery of why the plane came down short of the runway. There were also no signs of fuel contamination, however there were pieces of debris found in the fuel as well as unusual air bubbles in the high pressure fuel pumps. These findings are still being considered.

posted on Saturday, 23 February 2008 19:07:34 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback