If you are setting up a screen lock on your Samsung Galaxy S2, the best option is to use a PIN – don’t use the swipe grid. Your phone can be easily unlockable with the swipe grid because people can see the finger smudge pattern on the screen.
So can someone unlock your Galaxy phone using the swipe grid dots? Yes. Someone unlocked my phone in front of me without me asking them to try.
Some websites show the Galaxy S2 the mobile version of their site. Most often they are sniffing the browser user agent string (your phone tells the website what browser it is).
To change this, type in “about:useragent” as an address in the browser.
This lets you pretend to be another device, or better still something totally new.
Websites should then serve you the desktop version.
The Patterdale youth hostel in the Lake District is not the most opulent of hostels in Cumbria but it is one of the most friendly. I found the staff fantastic and had a terrific stay.
It doesn’t have the luxuries of a place like Ambleside, with its PCs, wireless access, games room and separate bar. It does, however,. have one of the best locations for a number of great Lakeland walks. It also has a kick-arse drying room. Good for winter mountaineering!
Helvellyn is easy to reach – I did a snowy day on Striding Edge with time to spare. I also managed to do a lovely loop up to Hart Crag and across to Fairfield and St Sunday Crag.
In summer months places such as High Street are within walking distance – in winter months you’re limited by daylight.
The staff were great. Friendly and polite. That’s all I ever ask for and they made me feel welcome, which was good.
I would definitely return to this youth hostel.
If you use the Cambridge Guided Bus make sure you use Whippet as they are much cheaper than Stagecoach. The bus is also quicker to get out to St Ives from Cambridge.
Just used this laundry facility in Mill Road, Cambridge to wash a sleeping bag. There is no hot water in any of the machines. Not even warm, despite what it says on the machine program guide.
It was 3 pound coins for a 7kg load machine and 4 pound coins for a 10kg load machine. 50p for dryer runs of 7mins 30secs but the buttons for preselecting heat were a bit faulty so I could not select the coolest setting.
You can quickly adjust the brightness of your Samsung Galaxy S2 by moving your finger over the top bar on the left, pausing for a second and then swiping right.
This ups the brightness. To lower it just do the opposite i.e. hold your finger top right and swipe left.
This works on any screen where the top bar is visible.
The only way to make this work is to wait until the phone has registered your finger being there and shows the “pull down” bar underneath it too.
You can store methylated spirits in a Trangia-branded fuel bottle for months, even years. It is entirely safe to store meths in the orange plastic bottle for the long-term. It is not, however, safe to store meths in the burner for ages. It can leak so don’t do it. Pour it back into the fuel bottle or pour it away.
I check with Trangia themselves about this so this advice is trustworthy.
I stayed at the Great Langdale campsite in Cumbria and it had its ups and downs.
Firstly I was staying during a wet period in the middle of winter, so the field being waterlogged in placed was perhaps to be expected. There were a few bits where it was just too stony for me to pitch my tent too so I had to pitch it three times until I found somewhere OK.
The facilities are pretty good. The showers are free and there seems to be plenty of hot water available for cleaning yourself and your pots and pans.
It has a drying room, which was great, if crowded. Its open 24 hours a day if you need it – and I put some stuff in at 3am once as I was trying to dodge the torrential rain.
The shop has all the essentials and the people who worked there were very friendly. Note – they DON’T sell loaves of bread but they DO sell baguettes – and they are baked on site so they’re warm and yummy! And it was only 50p when I was there (January 2012) so good value too.
Toilets were pretty clean and they had one of those hand dryers you dip your hands into rather than hold underneath, a bit like a Dyson Airblade. The road through the campsite became a river temporarily after heavy rain but I imagine this was the result of already waterlogged ground refusing to take run-off. Can’t fault the location either. If you’re going to go mountain walking in England this is one of the best places to camp. I mean top 5, not just “generally”. The mix of family-friendly walks and high fell tops is great, plus there are well-used routes to other parts of the Lakes too.
One thing – make sure you book your place in summertime. It gets really popular so book as far in advance as you possibly can. If you’ve just hiked over the fells and have nowhere else to go they probably won’t turn you away but if you’ve got a car, forget it.
This is a kind of mini-review for Butharlyp Howe Youth Hostel in Grasmere, Cumbria. I’ve stayed at a few YHA places before and Butharlyp Howe was a friendly as any of them.
Bear in mind that these details were correct in January 2012, so if you’re reading this 5 years later it might have changed a bit!
The drying room was pretty capacious and the two lounge rooms were very comfy and warm. It has Internet access there but you have to pay for it. 50p for 10 mins of wi-fi access is the cheapest. But for a fiver you get 24 hours of wi-fi access. This is using the Global Gossip system so it probably remembers your MAC address or something. Definitely not cookies or anything. I went to a web page and put my code in and I was still able to use stuff like the GMail app and Facebook on my phone just fine.
The food was of reasonably high quality – I was able to have cereal and cooked breakfast, which actually makes it pretty good value as it was only a fiver. Plus they have a nice toast machine. Evening meal was good too.
Bed was very comfy and the place was well-kept. The main door (which is around the BACK of the hostel) slams by itself so you need to close it by hand else it reverberates around the building.
Shower was good although I think the hot water had run out on my first attempt – which was around 9pm in the evening. Other times it was fine though.
I’d definitely stay there again, that is for sure. So I guess that is a recommendation!
