2015/07/31

Goodbye Stockholm or Parhaps Au Revoir: How To Make The Most of a Trip to Stockholm


For the last few months I have been living and working in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a genuinely pretty city with a unique character. Don't assume that if you have been to northern Europe that you will understand the Swedish culture, it is distinctly different here in the Nordics.

The city it's self offers a huge variety of activities as well as the some what more unique ability to travel 15KM and feel like you have really stepped into the wilderness.

Outdoor Spaces



If you don't know this the Swedish people love outdoor activities and the city offers a surprising number you can try relatively easily. One area well worth checking out is Smedsuddsbadet on Kungsholmen.


Here you can go to a bowls bar or sit on a man made beach, taking a wind surfing lesson or even do yoga sitting on a SUP board; this area has something for everyone.

Out of Town - Hiking / Mountain Biking


A little further out of town there are some really great spots like Kalltorp where you can cycle, swim and enjoy nature. You can hire a bike from Bike Sweden in the centre of the Stockholm and in an hour be swimming in a lake (all be it a cool dip even during the summer). For the extreme mountain bikers out there the technical sections of the yellow trail on the northern hill around the lake are far beyond my skill (and ability on a hard tail).

Top Things To Do In Stockholm

Saturday Blues Jam at Stampen


Brian Kramar's International Blues Jam at Stampen every Saturday from 14:00 until 18:00 can be a really fun and free way to spend your Saturday afternoon. The players are typically local but occasionally you have guest musicians who really stand out. There is a really friendly atmosphere where everyone, including children are welcome: quite often there are musicians in their teens joining in.

Selma City Spa on the Rooftop of Clarion Sign Hotel

If you are in need of a sauna, spa, or a fun pool to hang out in you should definitely check out the Selma City Spa at the Clarion Sign hotel near Centralen T-Ban. They have a selection of treatments including massage which you can follow with a sauna and swim in the outdoor heated pool. Even if it is raining you can still relax in the heated pool, it is 35'C so even if it is cold outside you will have a great view of the city from the pool.

Walk Along the Djurgardsbrunn Canal


This was one of my favourite walks in Stockholm. The view of the city from the north side of the canal is really exceptional on a sunny day. You can walk along one shore then back on the other. It is a very picturesque area.






Take the Archipelago Boat Trip

Stockholm city is a place dominated by islands and canals and one of the must do activities is to take the archipelago boat tour which sets off in the morning and the afternoon during the summer (I assume it doesn't run in the winter when the sea is frozen... ). The trip takes a few hours and gives you a glimpse into the idyllic mix of nature and space that make the Swedish summer house such an established tradition for man Swedes. 

2015/07/07

Welcome to Blogger!

This Sunday when I tried to write a new post, I found, horror of horrors that my site was down! After being a loyal customer of 1and1 for years, they had disabled my account due to lack of payment (boo)...

As with other services it seems like it is time to consolidate my many accounts and thought I would share some of the migrations that have happened recently for those who care...

DNS Hosting

I have used multiple DNS providers for some time including 1and1, 123-reg, and numerous others. In the last few months there have been some serious issues with a number of the DNS providers out there it seems, either due to accidental or not; there seems to be a throng of DDOS attacks on DNS over the last few months.

Some of the biggest have been against DNSMadeEasy, but to their credit they have had minimal outage caused by these scenarios. I'm hoping that they, having been well tested are a good bet.

Blog Hosting

Managing a wordpress site is simply becoming too much hard work especially with ongoing issues in the stack like the recent PHP issue. Having looked around blogger.com is still up there as one of the easiest solutions that mean I can sleep at night without having to manage any more sites than needed.

Virtual Machine Hosting

Though I have used Rackspace for quite some time for different startup projects like www.sitemorph.net and selling off www.clickdatelove.com newer projects made more sense to be hosted on AWS. The availability of RDS and some of it's advanced features make it really one of the best choices out there. The next best would be a container solution but pricing is often a problem for the 10-100qps traffic for current projects.