Appledore’s intrepid U14 pilot gig crew have won the coveted 2017 Lineal Shield.

Sponsored by Lineal, the annual youth competition is just one race among the men’s, women’s and youth events held between local gig clubs as part of the annual North Devon Pilot Gig Club Regatta in Barnstaple. 

This year’s winning youth team had to contend with the hot sunshine of an August Bank holiday on the river Taw, completing the traditional 1-mile sprint race which finishes by Barnstaple’s Longbridge, just outside Lineal’s riverfront offices, at a record pace.

Fans and supporters lined the Barnstaple quayside to cheer on the local gig races, including the winning Appledore boat, the Whitford.

Signalling from the quarterdeck of his event camera-boat the ‘Red Baron’, Lineal’s naval correspondent and Managing Director Mike Matthews congratulated the young team on their success: 

“This is the second year of the Lineal Shield competition, and it was fantastic to see the Appledore team win the trophy in spectacular fashion. It’s important we do everything we can to support youth sport.”

“Congratulations to all the excellent local teams who took part in this year’s brilliant community event. I’m off to the pub.”

Brainboxes from Lineal have won North Devon’s first Tarka Radio Quiz night.

Tarka Radio, North Devon’s Hospital Radio station, is run by volunteers for the enjoyment of patients and staff at North Devon District Hospital. 

Public, business and smartypants technology teams all took part in the charitable quiz at the Barnstaple Hotel to help raise funds for the beloved local broadcaster.

An intrepid six, assembled from the elite across different Lineal departments, answered three long rounds of tricky questions with only 5 incorrect answers.

Our thanks to Tarka Radio Chairman Keith Turner for organising such an enjoyable evening on behalf of a good cause.

You can learn more about Tarka Radio here. 

Lineal’s been growing recently, and we’re pleased to be able to welcome some new faces onto our team to help better support our customers:

  Sarah Allsobrook

Sarah joined Lineal earlier this year from a well-known North Devon electronic engineering company, and has quickly become an invaluable member of our team.

Her responsibilities include managing communication with our customers, coordinating our engineers’ busy schedules, and ensuring that Lineal’s offices run smoothly.  

  Kieran Tennant

Kieran became part of Lineal’s SQLWorks team a few weeks ago for work experience. So far, he has been assisting with more complex data tasks, and helps maintain our IT Support Team’s Lineal Active Monitoring Process (LAMP): a proactive series of hardware maintenance checks performed every day on our clients servers- a job that favours a methodical approach and a keen eye for the early warning signs of server problems.

Check back for more soon…

Lineal Shield

A mixed Barnstaple and Bude youth team have won the first U14 juniors shield, sponsored by Lineal Software, at the third annual Barnstaple Pilot Gig Club Regatta.

This year’s winning youth team, which included rowers from Barnstaple and Bude, beat Appledore in a 1-mile sprint race on the river Taw to Barnstaple’s Longbridge.

The event, which is supported each year by Lineal, includes teams from across North Devon and Cornwall, and finishes just outside Lineal’s main office in Barnstaple.

We hope that the juniors’ contest for the new shield will become a regular feature of the annual regatta, and that the competitions will grow to get more young people involved in local sport.

In addition to sponsoring the shield, Lineal’s Managing Director and resident sports reporter Mike Matthews provided live action photography of the men’s, women’s and junior races from aboard Lineal’s mobile camera boat: ‘The Red Baron!’

Congratulations to all the teams on a fantastic event.

Over Christmas 2015/16, Lineal launched a technical trial to provide free, public-access Wifi across Barnstaple Town Centre.

The pilot scheme, which took place during the busiest shopping period of the year, saw our team solve a number of technical challenges: scoping sites for Wifi access points, installing suitable hardware and managing network connectivity for shoppers and visitors to the town.

With generous support from Barnstaple Town Centre Management (BTCM), North Devon Council and M&E Alarms, we delivered a free wifi network connected to by more than 400 people each day at peak usage.

To build the network itself, we used Cisco Meraki MR-66 ruggedised outdoor routers, fixing a ‘mesh’ grid of interconnected access points high on selected buildings owned by local businesses who agreed to take part. Visitors to the town could connect from any smartphone or other wirelessely enabled device, via a special ‘splash’ page.

Managing Director of Lineal, Mike Matthews, explained: “We wanted to attempt an ambitious project which would benefit our local area. Wider connectivity opens up new ways for people to find out information about upcoming events, for local businesses to advertise, and for visitors to our town to share their enjoyment of Barnstaple with friends and family over social media. There are many possibilities.”

Throughout the trial period each access point also collected anonymised location data in real-time. With as many as 20,000 wirelessly enabled devices moving within Barnstaple town centre during a 24 hour period, the free Wifi Project was also successfully used to measure footfall patterns in public places, which could one day be used to help local authorities plan for busy periods.

Although the pilot project has now ended, team members from Lineal presented the initial findings to the Barnstaple Town Centre Management, North Devon Council and Devon County Council in February 2016, with a view to launching the network as a more permanent asset for the town in the near future.

For more information on cabling & network infrastructure services from Lineal: click here or call us today on 01271 375999