An Office With a View

 

At some point in the last six months, things just began to click into place. I can't say that I ever missed being in Jurby per se, but for a while I did feel truly out-of-place. Slowly, however, that seems to be changing. Now, this little apartment on the edge of town is becoming home. Even more surprising is that my brother seems to feel the same.

For me in particular, a great deal of the reason for this has to be the view. It is, honestly, something we really didn't have in Jurby, despite the possibilities. In many ways, my two office views are similar. Both look out of a bedroom/office over the rooftops.

In Jurby, however, that view was of close bungalow roofs and only the sky beyond. There wasn't much to see out of the window, apart from the odd gull, rook or pigeon.

Here, in Ramsey, that is totally different. I still see the rooftops of the bungalows opposite, but here I'm high enough up that the view is of the whole of town, or so it seems on a bright and clear day. You don't really get to see the movements of people in the town, but you get a real sense of what the day is like. Trees blow in the wind, the mist closes in as the rain falls and the roofs get dusted with snow on those rare days when we actually have some.

The sea is tantalisingly just out of direct view. I need to stand in the lounge window and look out to the right to see a bit of the Pier and the bay, but even that minor detraction doesn't bother me anymore.

It's dynamic and interesting in a way that the view in Jurby just wasn't able to be. Now, if only I can manage to not let it distract me from either work or writing!

The MANXNET Thing

I'm trying my best to be understanding under the circumstances, but I've been bleating on about this happening for more than three years now and have spent much of that time trying to get people to switch to some other mail service.

There must come a time when, no matter how much you are attached to the nostalgia and familiarity of a thing, it is time to let go. Even that old car gets sent to scrap when your feet are rubbing on the ground as you drive along. All things must pass.

Rubbish

My fondness for the manx.net email platform is very different from that of anyone else. I earn so much from helping people to keep it working that I'll actually be sorry to see it go. Well, I'll be sorry to see the income from it go, at least.

Frankly, for the last ten years or so, the service from MT for this part of their business has been abysmal. It's not just bad, it's bloody awful. In an ill-advised push to get everyone to use a web-based interface, they have neglected the support for POP3 and IMAP users on home computers and basically disowned them. Indeed, they probably only keep IMAP working for their thousands of mobile-phone users.

The Offer

So, for basically £80 per year, they will allow you to keep your email address and continue to use it with the same service provider - something new called Jumara that appears to have been created specifically to be a new brand. The backbone is provided by ATMAIL who are apparently respected in the field of providing email services to entities like MT. Sadly, they don't seem to be highly rated - https://au.trustpilot.com/review/www.atmail.com.

Some of the reviews hit home hard. Servers randomly down for indeterminate periods sounds eerily familiar.

Perhaps the oddest thing about all of this is that they are starting to sell this new service as a step forward at a point where the POP3 and IMAP servers are actually down for many people. They would apparently have been better to have taken manx.net out the back and quietly despatched it!

The Alternatives?

Well, whatever you do, don't go with their ridiculous offer. There are countless alternatives and options out there. Changing your email isn't as bad as you might think and it can be a good chance to get rid of all that stuff that you're subscribed to but never read.

If you already have a GMAIL, HOTMAIL/LIVE/OUTLOOK, ICLOUD or YAHOO address, then perhaps just keep on using that. If you don't, then these are good options for switching.

Slightly less well-known are providers like PROTON or MAIL.COM. Do a search for "FREE EMAIL PROVIDERS" and take a look at the many options out there.

Finally - and not as complex as you might think - is the creation of your own email accounts on a domain of your choosing. Almost any website hosting company will offer unlimited email addresses and massive amounts of storage when you buy a domain name. They can offer full functionality for a fraction of the cost. I pay less than £40 per year for my david@dkinrade.com address with FREEOLA.

The Bottom Line

Don't get caught by the trap. 

YOU HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THIS

You do not have to stick with manx.net just because it is familiar. They are too expensive and far too unreliable to be worth hanging on to.

Explore the alternatives - this is what searching the internet is for.

Shout if you need help. There are always options and I'm happy to chat. I'll even try and avoid all the jargon and keep it in English!

India - There We Went

So, our epic Indian quest is over, with a high degree of success, tempered by one or two epic failures. I've finally managed to see a tiger - four of them in fact - but missed out on snow leopard and Pallas's cats.

Still, hundreds of new birds have been added to the list and I've discovered that I can indeed survive at 14,000ft, even if it's a bloody struggle.

The link to the trip report - with some photos - is on the right and the usual published book version will be coming along very soon.

India - Here We Go!

Well, we're nearly ready to go again. So much has happened in the last three months that, all things considered, it was touch-and-go whether I would cancel this trip at more than one point. In the end though, Dad would have wanted me to go, no matter what happened and that's what I've decided to do. There might even be a little bit of my usual nervousness having been responsible for my doubts along the way.

It's tricky, when everyone around you is either telling you that India is wonderful or that India is terrible, to come to your own view without actually going and seeing for yourself. I only have my travelling companions to truly rely on in this regard. Fred has consistently repeated, time and time again, that he really doesn't like India, for a number of reasons. However, he keeps coming up with an excuse to go back, meaning that there must be something really worthwhile to draw him, despite his reservations.

This time, that was a set of photos on a trip report made by some of his friends on Trip Advisor. All he had to do was show them to me as well and I was hooked. While the main focus of this trip might be those huge striped cats, there does really seem to be so much more to be seen.

Our trip will be a little bird-heavy. Sometimes this is a complaint, especially when it is in a place that you've visited before, but India's birds will be mostly new to me and that's just fine. I've called "Jungle Fowl" in almost every country in Africa, only to be consistently told that the roadside chickens aren't native. Now's my big chance to tick it off the list once and for all. That's probably also true for peacocks and pheasants.

So, I have my passport, I have my Visa and I have my yellow fever card. Cameras have been checked, new batteries have been purchased - at great expense - and my laptop has been cleared for the influx of photographs. I'm as ready as I'll ever be to experience India on my own terms and I'm ready!