jamesclay, Author at Tech Stuff

March 31, 2025June 13, 2025

Roaming in France

Following issues with using data in Portugal a few years ago with excessive data usage on my iPhone, I did wonder if I should follow the same process I had used in October 2023 when I went to Amsterdam, last year when I went to Europe, and when I went to Helsinki in February.

The process I would use is go into Settings -> Mobile Data and turn off virtually all the apps which could use mobile data. I would turn off mobile data for virtually all my apps and also specifically iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup. I am pretty sure they were the culprits for my excessive data usage whilst in Portugal.

However this time I was heading to Calais and Dunkerque just for the day, though I was expecting to use my phone, I didn’t think I would go overboard on the data (even using iCloud for my photos) and I didn’t think I would exceed the 12Gb Fair Use limit.

When I arrived in France, my phone automatically connected to the correct network and I was able to use 5G (and I guess make phone calls, but I didn’t make any calls).

I did turn off data when I was on the ferry though (as recommended by DFDS) and connected to the Ferry WiFi.

March 30, 2025March 31, 2025

Ouch, down to 1%

I hadn’t planned on getting down to a 1% charge, but that happened to me recently.

I had done a day trip to Dunkerque and had arrived back on the ferry at Dover with a roughly 50% charge left on the car. I had used more battery power than anticipated, as I had managed to get an easier ferry to Calais, but then during the day I had to travel from Calais to Dunkerque, only a 25 mile trip, but it was an unplanned trip. I also did think I might be able to charge at one of the French supermarkets I stopped at, but didn’t see any chargers. Well, I wasn’t really looking hard, but if there was one I would have probably put some charge on the Funky Cat.

I had to drive from Dover to Weston-super-Mare, a total distance of 215 miles. The Funky Cat has a maximum (published) range of 193, though when I recently charged to 100% I had a maximum range of 176. If I started off with 100% I could have done the trip with a single stop for a charge. Now if I wasn’t worried I could have stopped off anywhere at the services, paid 85p kWh and charged up there, but I wanted to save some money.

Having arrived back quite late, I knew I could take advantage of Instavolt’s off peak rates. I couldn’t use the Tesla chargers at the Channel Tunnel as they are only for people getting on or getting off the trains on the Channel Tunnel. So I headed down the M20 to the Instavolt chargers at Ashford. These chargers are near The Ashford Cattle Market, as a result after putting the Funky Cat on charge I stayed in the car.

It cost 54p kWh which is much cheaper than their standard 85p. A couple of days before I had used an Instavolt charger at the peak rates. For roughly the same amount of money, during peak charging I got 15.33 kWh, whilst off peak I got 25.18 kWh. Quite a substantial saving.

I didn’t charge to 100% as it takes quite a long time, especially that last 20%. So knowing there was 100 miles to the Tesla chargers on the M4 westbound services at Reading, I made sure I had at least a 125 mile range. I then set off.

However there is where all best laid plans started to go amiss. I found out via Waze that the M25 was closed between junctions 9 and 10. This meant I missed the Cobham Services, but did mean that I saved some power, as I find A road driving is more energy efficient then motorway driving. I also saw that the M4 was closed, which I saw was between J10 and J11.

So I wasn’t too worried. Waze took me down the M3 and through Bracknell and Wokingham. I’ve done this route before, so wasn’t too worried and assumed that this was also avoiding where the M4 was closed. However as I approached the M4 junction with the A329(M) the slip road onto the M4 was closed. This probably meant that the M4 was closed around the services as well. Time for a plan B. I asked Ora for the nearest charging station and saw that there was a bank of Tesla chargers at Wokingham.

I arrived at the Wokingham stalls, and noted on the app they were compatible to non-Tesla chargers, and the rate at that time was 41p kWh. Great I thought, however these were the older model chargers and I have had issues with these in the past. It was going to be a similar story, despite plugging in, I couldn’t get the Funky Cat to initialise a charge with the Tesla charger. I was now getting quite low on power. So after driving through Reading, I once more asked Ora for the nearest charger, and I ended up at a Shell Garage on Basingstoke Road. I put the Funky Cat on charge which was going to cost 85p a kWh a lot more than I was expecting to pay and compared to the Tesla costs.

As I sat in the car (again) I checked the maps and I did think from what I could read that the M4 was open from J11.

So I did a minimal charge and set off, however at the junction the slip road was closed off. I headed off through the diversion and joined the M4 at J12. I decided I would stop at one of the services on the M4, and just do a charge there. I approached Chieveley Services, I saw I still had enough range to get to Membury Services. I had had issues before at Chieveley Services, so decided I would go to Membury.

As I approached Membury Services, my range got lower and lower, until it went to zero. My heart rate started to increase and I slowed down. I got to Membury Services and checked the car I had 1% charge left. There are a bank of Tesla chargers at Membury Services, however they don’t work with non-Tesla cars. So I had to use the Gridserve chargers.

I had to recreate my account with them to use the app, so I could get the lower rate of 79p kWh. I put on enough charge to get me home and then some.

Even so, when I got home I had 6% left of charge.

It had been a frustrating trip, but I rarely do something like this, so though annoying, the Funky Cat is still a great drive. I had to remember that it was mainly frustrating as I was trying to save money on charging and keep my driving costs down.

March 26, 2025March 30, 2025

Well that’s even better

So after getting just 125 miles on one recent charge, I did another charge to 100% and the predicted range was a much better 168 miles.

I did wonder if I would get a better charge than that, so was pleased to find on my latest charge the predicted range was 176 miles.

March 4, 2025

No I don’t want the AI features…

coffee, notebook, pen, on a table — Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

Sometimes you need to check things out, as they could be costing you money for features you don’t need.

My monthly charge for my Microsoft Office subscription came through and it had risen from £5.99 to £8.49 a month.

I didn’t recall getting an email, but then realised it would have been to my outlook.com email address which I don’t really use and look at rarely.

I was a little surprised and a little annoyed. However I do use Microsoft Office a fair bit, so decided for the moment I would keep subscribing, well for the moment.

It was interesting then to note a day later I was on the Money Saving Expert website, looking at other things when I saw a link to an article.

Microsoft’s auto-adding up to £30 a year to 365 subscriptions for its AI software – but we’ve a trick to avoid it

I read the the article and I saw that the increase was due to the addition of AI functionality to the Office suite. Now this was something I had seen when using Office, but never used. It would appear that you can downgrade back to Classic and though you lose the AI functionality, the charge is the original £5.99.

Microsoft says the option to switch to a Classic plan will be offered for the next year. To make the switch:

Sign in to your Microsoft account.

Go to ‘Subscriptions’ and select ‘Manage’.

Select ‘Cancel subscription’. This will give you the option to choose a monthly or annual Classic Personal or Classic Family plan.

I did this and my plan reverted back to Classic.

I had seen the AI functionality whilst using Office, but most of the time I either wanted to turn it off, or I was ignoring it. So for me, no real loss of functionality, if anything it will improve my productivity as I won’t be distracted by it.

You would have thought that Microsoft would remember that paper clip… Did people really appreciate that paper clip saying You appear to be writing a letter…. I certainly turned off that functionality back in the day. For me in many ways AI functionality is something akin to the paper clip. Thanks, but no thanks.

Not sure what happens next year, maybe we will all be forced to upgrade to have AI. One of the lessons here is to look at your subscriptions and emails.

February 17, 2025

Apple’s Image Playground

One of the new features for the Mac is Apple Intelligence. I was curious about Image Playground and how that would work.

Produce fun, original images in seconds with the Image Playground experience right in your apps. Create an entirely new image based on a description, suggested concepts, and even a person from your Photos library.

Having tried it, I would say it is nothing special. Yes the images are nice, but you can tell they are AI generated. It also doesn’t do photorealistic images.

As a tool to create some fun images to share with friends, yes it’s fine, so use it for that.

February 15, 2025February 14, 2025

Roaming in Finland

I was flying off to Finland and would be using my iPhone out there.

Following issues with using data in Portugal a few years ago with excessive data usage on my iPhone, I followed the same process I had used in October 2023 when I went to Amsterdam and last year when I went to Europe.

When I was on the plane at Heathrow, I went into Settings -> Mobile Data and turned off virtually all the apps which could use mobile data. Took me a while as there were a fair few. I turned off mobile data for virtually all my apps and also specifically iCloud Driveand iCloud Backup. I am pretty sure they were the culprits for my excessive data usage whilst in Portugal.

As and when I needed to use apps, I either used the hotel wifi, or switched on mobile data for specific apps.

I didn’t run out of data this visit, it was a shorter visit, just a few days. All worked fine.

I was also impressed with the mobile data speeds in Finland, which to be honest knowing their history (you know Nokia) wasn’t too surprising.

February 14, 2025

Well what is the point then?

When flying I usually download films and TV programmes onto my phone, so I can watch them in flight mode.

I had downloaded a film from Netflix, and on the plane I set it to play. After a few minutes whilst watching a film I had downloaded I got the following error.

You’ve reached the end of what was downloaded so far. Please connect to the internet to continue watching.

Now I was a little confused, as I was sure the film had downloaded fully. I opened the film again and checked, by moving through the file that it was all there. So I started the film again, fast forwarded to where I was. I watched it for a few more minutes. I then got the error again..

I went through the same process again of restarting the film.

After the third time, I stopped watching.

I have no idea about the error and what caused it, I have had issues before where downloads have expired, but this was the first time I had this specific error.

The whole point of downloading is so that you can watch a film without the need for an internet connection. In this instance I couldn’t connect to the internet as I was in the air.

February 6, 2025

Well that’s better

So after getting just 125 miles recently, I did a charge to 100% and the predicted range was a much better 168 miles.

This was guessing down to warmer temperatures and recently using the heating less.

February 4, 2025February 4, 2025

How low can you go?

After what I thought was a low predicted range at a 100% of 139 miles, I found myself with a predicted range of just 125 miles when I recently charged to 100%.