Installshield Error 1327 (Or Invalid Drive)

A common problem I come across which causes me lots of problems to resolve, particularly with networked machines, is the Invalid Drive error (usually error code 1372) when you try and run the an InstallShield Installer often caused by a Mapped Network drive.  I believe the problem exists because you map a drive at a user level, but the administrator doesn't get the same 'layer' of drives (just try opening a mapped drive from an Administrative command prompt).   Previously, Id got round this problem by logging in as a local administrator, installing the app needed for All Users, then logging back in as the user required to finish off the setup.    Note, this problem usually occurs before you even choose which drive to install to, so I can only assume its a feature of Installshield related to either a temporary file store location, or enumeration of drives at start.

However, I've discovered a really useful work around which seems to resolve the problem, and its the subst command.   Subst associates a drive letter with an alternative drive/path, allowing you to have multiple letters pointing to a location.  It is to drive letters what the mklink is for files and folders.

To use it, fire up an administrative command prompt and type:
susbt M:  C:\temp\installshieldtemp
where
subst ProblemDriveLetter TemporaryFolderLocation 

Run the installer to let it install and you can then cleanup with:
subst /D M:
where /D is delete and M: is the Drive letter you used in step 1.

Just typing subst will show  you drive letters you have susbtituted.

A little Comic Relief

The annual or bi-annual charity appeals are always fun, but also somewhat predictible as to what we'll end up seeing.  So, whilst I urge you to donate,  you can also have a bit of fun whilst watching.

So here's the rules of the drinking game we're playing by:


The rules are simple:
Define your own measure,  be it a shot,  finger's width or even a whole glass.

One Measure
- A disease is mentioned
- An African Child is seen with a fly on its face
- Every time a celebrity does something 'exciting'
- A giant cheque is produced
- A celebrity holds an African child
- A celebrity crys
- The Phone Number is read out
- Man dressed as a woman, or a woman dressed as a man

Two Measures
- The total so far is read out
- We see the phone call takers up BT Tower
- When the guest presenters change
- When the presenters look confused because they don't know what they're going to next
- If we're shown a picture of BBC TV Centre

Three Measures
- When the presenter runs his/her fingers along the screen as the number is read out.
- When someone mouths the number at the back of shot
- When someone makes the 'phone call' symbol
- News Presenters doing something 'wacky'
- When an African child is made to wear a red-nose

Four Measures
- Wogan or Pudsey Appears

Penalties:
Penalties require a CR donation
- Spillage - £1
- Fall Over - £1
- Vomit - £5
- Pass-out - Whatever you can shake out of their wallet/purse.

Remember Kids, Drink Responsibly,  as little African Kids often can't.   Give Generously!

Sugru - A Brief Update

I just wanted to provide a brief update on my thoughts of Sugru.  Its a wonderful product, ideal for fixing and personalising things.  However,  the biggest bugbear of all is the shelf-life.

Unlike duck/duct tape,  superglue,  epoxy resin, putty  and other more commonly known fixing materials and methodologies,  Sugru 'sets' after about 6 months,  whether you've opened it or not.  This means that one of the big bags I had became useless as I wasn't able to use the sachets before they'd all set.

And because Sugru isn't available in most shops,  you can't just pop and get some more - you have to wait for the postman to bring it for you.  This is fine if you have a non-urgent fix, but when you need to do something straight away,  you either have to ensure you have some fresh Sugru in,  or find an alternative option.  Its often the latter.  So reader beware!

One final point,  Sugru reckon if you keep it in the fridge, it will keep for 18 months;  I'll have to pick some up and try it.

We Canna do it Captain, we don't have the Power.

Last night, we experienced an area wide power cut.   Despite being in modern 21st century,  this is nothing unusual - they seem to occur 3-4 times per year, with an average length of about 20mins.

Many people in the area are fully prepared,  with battery powered lanterns, torches and the traditional candles and matches to hand.  But after you've provided yourself a bit of light (when it happens at night), you find yourself sitting there, wondering what to do now the TV, Radio, Computers have all gone off.   And of course, whilst your broadband has almost certainly gone off, your smartphone falls back to the mobile network for its internet which more often than not keeps working.  Anyone using social networks via their phone can tweet for facebook that the power has gone out,  and start comparing notes as to how far it stretches.  Most people wouldn't bother to phone their power supplier to let them know about the outage, as I think the assumption is that they can detect it and start resolving it ASAP.

But do they?

The previous supplier of electricity, Central Networks used to have a map that you could click on and see where they knew there were faults.  Western Power Distribution http://goo.gl/JjuKU , the new incumbent do not.  Now,  the information used to be available to the suppliers, so where has it gone now?  Do they no longer have the systems to collect this data from the grid,  or was it collated from their CRM systems?  Maybe they feel that it is some kind of sensitive data so best not to share it,  or simply that the bosses do not think this information is valuable to its client base.
I'm singling out Western Power, but a quick search of the power companies listed by the National Grid (http://goo.gl/7XSpX) seem to highlight only 
Northern Power Grid (http://goo.gl/OrPvN) and
Electricity Northwest (http://goo.gl/lvIwR)
seem to be willing and/or able to provide this information.   And good on them too.  Not only do ENWL show current unplanned outages, but also future planned work.   

So my point is,  if they can do it,  why can't other utility providers provide outage information.  Or,  maybe its something that the National Grid can do - after all, they provide a live view of the demand (http://goo.gl/A3tv6),  but can they see deep enough into the local grids to see the outages. 

Power cuts happen - its a fact of life.  But how long will it take suppliers to embrace the communication power of the Internet to get information out to its customers.  For now,  I guess we'll just have stick with searching twitter for #PowerCut

Do you, Sugru?

How many times have you bought a fantastic product that is perfect in every way, right up until the moment it breaks.  Or you’ve got something that performs a function, but isn’t quite right.  Historically, you’d end up going out and buying a replacement - something that may still not do the job.   Well, I’ve discovered a product which may help you reduce your ‘throw away and replace’ approach with a ‘make do and mend’ attitude.  Only without the make-do.

Sugru is a product I heard about in the late summer of 2010 and it immediately peaked my interest.  A product invented in the UK by an Irish woman,  it is a mouldable, self-curing silicone with lots of really nice features.  When you get it from its sachet, it has the consistency of too-warm bluetak – a sticky clay like substance that can be moulded into any shape you choose.  It initially sets within 30minutes then cures within 24hours to whatever shape you’ve moulded it from. When it sets, it turns into something with the consistency of hard-rubber.  It retains a slightly springy texture, the sort of resistance of a block-eraser.  It also self-adheres to many materials like glass, metal  & plastics, works between –60c and +180c, is thermally insulating,  waterproof, even dishwasher safe! 

I bought some packs for Xmas and gave friends and family a sachet each to try, and kept some for myself.  This weekend, I went on a bit of a Sugru session because I had two things to try.   First of all, my car stereo security faceplate had broken – one of the retaining clips broke off with plastic fatigue.  However, I found that a bit of paper wedged in the slot  would hold it in place.  So I applied a bit of Sugru to the faceplate, left it for about 8hrs then tried it.  It worked!  Even better, the clip that holds the faceplate in had moulded a little indentation in the Sugru which held it even more securely.  Another 12hrs of curing, and you wouldn’t know that the thing was broken in the first place.  That's £30 saved on a replacement facia or £100+ on a replacement stereo.

The second usage for it was to adapter a mobile phone holder.   I’ve got a small phone-chair which is designed to rest a mobile phone in and keep the screen visible. However, because of its shape, I couldn’t put the phone in its naturally portrait orientation and charge it at the same time – it would have to be landscape with the cable at the side, which was OK, but not all apps support rotation. So I moulded two Sugru ‘ears’ at the front of the chair, let it set, and now the results can be seen right. Its not perfect (my craft skills are somewhat lacking) but it certainly does the job.  Only a few pounds saved but it does the job perfectly.

Sugru seems like a brilliant product – the WD40 equivalent of a physical medium.  However, there are problems with it:- 

• it seems expensive – about 95p per 5g sachet (which is what I used here).  However, its still cheaper than buying new!  
• It can be a bit of a pain to handle – it seemed difficult to get small pieces of it to stick to the object I wanted it to adhere to, rather than my fingers.  Plus, whilst it is classified as “not dangerous” it may cause an allergic reaction.  Its probably no more dangerous than any other chemical based material.
• It currently only has one cured state.  Sugru say that they can mix different formulations, but currently only offer this one.
• Thinking of things to do with it.  With only a 6month ‘best before’ date, I will have to find things to use it on in the next few months.  However, there are lots of ideas on the Sugru website including repairing broken shoes, making tent pegs softer so that they could be hand inserted, and forming a bespoke golf-club handle.

I would seriously recommend picking up a pack (£6.50 for a 6 pack, £11.50 for a 12 pack) and trying it out on something – really clever stuff.

Adventures with the Omnima LCD Panel

I have recently picked up an Omnima LCD panel, a 3.5” QVGA (320x240) USB powered LCD panel with an SDCard slot and the ability to control it like a serial device over the USB port using the included cable.

Having an ARM7 based processor and a 2D graphics engine, it promises to be a great little versatile display panel for outputting information not requiring a full screen (sensor information e.t.c, news feeds, that sort of thing).  Plus, many of the LCD panels available on the internet either require an additional controller or some curious interfacing to be able to drive it.  For not a lot of cash, this prebuilt solution seems to be an ideal choice.

So that's the good bit – the bad bit is that there doesn’t seem much support for it.  The supplier forums are quiet at best (and not accepting new sign-ups) and there doesn’t appear to be much documentation other than the PDF’s on the Omnima website/forum.  I suspect there may be more available if you buy the SDK tools, but these are expensive to say the least.  Plus, I don’t have that much interest in writing new code for the screen CPU because I believe the inbuilt functionality is enough, and I’m not skilled in C++ development.

Anyway, the screen (version 3 as shown on the website) itself works with LCDSmartie (I’m using v 5.4.1) and the DLL included in the forum worked after a fashion.  The OmnimaLCD.cmd file included in the ZIP file isn’t quite right.  The standard command ends up rendering every serial command to the screen, rather than the result of the command.  The below command sets it up properly.

#@Term MW Off
#@Term FW Off
#@Cls
#@FrColor 0 255 0 0
#@FloatWin Open 10 10 240 320
#@Line MW 10 10 50 10
#@Line MW 10 50 10 10
#@Line MW 10 190 10 230
#@Line MW 10 230 50 230
#@Line MW 270 10 310 10
#@Line MW 310 10 310 50
#@Line MW 270 230 310 230
#@Line MW 310 190 310 230

This turns off any terminal command writing to the screen, creates a black box on the screen, creates a float window to render the text in, and draws some nice green lines at the edges screen which I think look quite nice.  One thing to be aware of,  you can use 4 x 20 screen setting as recommended, and you can use 4 x 40 setting.  However, on the latter, if the text exceeds the screen width, you get text wraparound where it runs around onto the left of the screen.  Not so bad if you don’t have scrolling text and format your text lines appropriately.  Also, the on screen left position seems to be set in the DLL file – I had a bash at editing what looked like the command in a HEX editor, but to no avail.

A note really for myself – the line plotting code consists of x horizontal poz, x vertical poz, y horizontal poz, y vertical poz. 

The one thing I need to work out now is how to render pictures to the screen – apparently supported, but I’m not getting much joy with it.  The graphics processor apparently supports JPEG pictures, but when I try and load it, the unit locks up and needs a power cycle.  The documentation suggests I need to use the “oimage tool” to convert from JPG, PNG e.t.c to a compatible format:-

To generate files suitable for loading using FileToSSD you can make use of the oimage tool. This tool can load all popular image file formats such as jpg, gif, bmp and more, and save the file in the SSD compatible format.

I’ve Googled the heck out of oimage and SSD compatible format, but can’t find anything of relevance – if anyone has any clues, please leave me a note.  I’ve asked Omnima directly, but not yet had a response.  Given that the device is basically a mini picture frame, it would be nice to be able to load and display pictures as well as vector graphics, especially as the latter can be quite slow (I would guess at 500ms per line) on the LCDSmartie example above.  The documentation suggests that picture loading can be quite quick, but we’ll see. 

Finally, id like to get it working in LCD4Linux – I cant see it being too difficult if its just got to send information via text strings, but that's a project for another time.

Dreambox Sky Bouquets on Astra 28.2

I see a fair number of requests for people looking for the bouquets for their dreambox.  The one I published is well out of date, because I use some excellent ones provided by user B16MCC over at the satellites.co.uk forum.  Have a look at THIS thread, sign-up and say that I sent you :)

e.On Smart Meter development.

I have an eOn AMPY (Now Landis Gyr+) Smart Meter to monitor my electricity usage as well as a similarly enabled Gas Meter.   It also comes supplied with an eOn branded ‘ecometer’ which shows you energy usage on a current, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.  Because the smart meter is attached to the grid via a GPRS/GSM modem link, it is also ‘tariff’ aware, such that it gives an indicative figure on your bill.

However, the bit between the ecometer and the supplier’s website is where it all goes wrong – if you want a detailed understand of your power usage, you’re a bit stuck.  Because you can only see ‘current’ usage as a number, if you want to know how much you were using 15 mins ago, you’re stuffed, because the display isn’t detailed enough, and the website only updates on a monthly basis,

So, my plan is to try and understand the technology to see if there is a way of extracting the ‘live’ data as its transmitted from from the meter to the ecoMeter display, and I intend to track my progress here.

So, to start:-

Meter is an AMPY 5236E-Y which apparently has an mbus low power radio in it.
The ecoMeter display is an AMPY Model 5262

Inside the 5262 is a PCB with the LCD soldered to the front of it. However, there is a daughterboard tucked behind the LCD with a TI CC110, what looks like a Crystal Oscillator (ACT K7 26.00SCA) and a chip I can find no data on, but has the serial number 90-13026 037 something 7373vg.
Unfortunately I can’t currently see the controllers on the main board because of the LCD, but there is one ‘major’ microprocessor, and one small one. I suspect this is really just a logic chip and LCD driver.  The motherboard has the following stickers on it:
46228938A1-AG
AML2008/01/28-38A1/AG
There is also a 9 point (3x3) contact patch on the back of motherboard which may be either a programmer or output. This is accessible from outside the case, if that makes a difference.

What I need to find out:-

More about the MBus Protocol
If there is any encryption between the meter and the display panel.
Any control panel options for the ecoMeter – e.g. is there a PIN to set or the like, and how this relates to the meter itself. Additionally, are there any hidden menu’s e.t.c.

Channelling messages from beyond…

OK, so who owns a BT Home Hub?  I’m sure many tens of you do, as that's the default solution from BT for home internet connections. And I’m sure its a great product.  However, they seem to cause me nothing but trouble – you see, I don’t use BT as an ISP as they’re comparatively expensive, low on functionality, and reports indicate that its quite slow and unreliable too.   So, I’ve got my own Wifi routers (Linksys WRT54gl’s) in the house which run a custom firmware and allow me to set them up just so.  Three of them ensure that I have total wifi coverage at Very Good or above throughout the house.  Or that's the theory.

For those that don’t know, here’s a brief technical overview of how wifi works…   Wifi is generally split into 4 types – A, B, G and N, with A & N running at 5 Ghz, and B, G (and N) running at 2.1 Ghz.  5 Ghz offers around 19 channels in Europe with 20 Mhz separation, which is fine.  However,  2.1 Ghz only offers 13 channels spaced 5 Mhz apart, but the wifi protocol requires 25mhz of separation.  This means that in reality, there are only three or four channels that can be used without clashing with other networks.  And that's assuming that you’ve no other devices on the 2.1Ghz band such as Bluetooth, baby monitors,  TV senders,  wireless video game controllers – even microwaves and fluorescent lights can generate radio noise on this band.

A few minutes spent planning the network can reduce the impact that this has, even for a single access point.  The diagram shows the spectrum coverage of the given wifi channels, and you can use this to work out what the optimal settings for your network is.

So what you need to do is find out what channels your neighbours network is on (many wifi drivers and access points will show you).  If for example they’re on channel 11,  you could use 7 downwards.  Where it becomes more complicated is when you have neighbours both sides with wifi – you’ve got to slot in with them and hope that there are free channels available.

But back to my original point – flippin BT HomeHubs!  Most of my neighbours seem to be using them, which is fine, BUT the HomeHubs don’t seem to be able to pick a channel and stick with it – except when manually configured to do so! Every few weeks I find my wireless has gone to hell, and I look, and one of the hubs has changed its channel to the opposite end of the spectrum which means recalibrating my setup to get the best I can with the least overlap.  What’s most annoying is that they seem pretty useless at seeing what's available and will often arbitrarily pick channel 6 or 7 no matter what is around them!  Which makes it pretty difficult to configure the network without any overlap.  My only hope is 802.11n (N networks) will go someway to improve this, but I don’t currently have any experience on its impact, other than it is supposed to be better in noisy environments.  But for now, I’ll stick with wired ethernet where I require guaranteed service such as to my media server, as its the only way of ensuring a consistent an reliable connection. 

And if you find your wireless experience is awful, check your channel assignment – the chances are you and your neighbours are all shouting at the same time and drowning each other out!

Installing Debian Lenny on ML370 G3 with RAID Controller.

Whilst Debian Lenny is compatible with the Compaq/HP ML370 G3 with RAID Controller on-board, it took me a little work to get it installed and I wanted to document my efforts for myself and others!  This was a painful process to get it working, and perhaps isn’t for the weak of heart or those early in their Linux-ninja training, but hopefully this will guide you to the path of enlightenment and joy!

PreReqs:-
An ML370 G3 with sufficient hardware to boot/install e.t.c.
A copy of HP SmartStart (I used 7.20, others may work). ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/products/servers/supportsoftware/ZIP/
A copy of Windows 2003 (2000 may also work).
Debian Lenny NetInst CD
USB Stick formatted as FAT with ‘non-free’ Array Controller Driver saved to it (ql2300_fw.bin in my case).

How I did it:-

1. Connect up the machine, power on and insert the HP SmartStart CD
2. Once the SmartStart has booted, configure your array(s) as per your requirement.  In my case, I used 2x147GB drives in a RAID1 and 4x72GB drives in a RAID5.
3. Do an operating system install, choose to install Windows and let it do its own partitioning.
4. Let Windows install, don’t bother doing any major configuratoring as you’re going to wipe the server again shortly…
5. Once Windows is installed and on the desktop, insert the Debian CD and Reboot.
6. Boot to the Lenny Installer, and choose a ‘Standard Install’.
7. Configure as normal.
8. When you get to the bit about partitioning, choose the Manual Option.
9. Goto the NTFS partition that the Windows install created, change it to an Ext3 format, ensure it is set to be bootable, and set the mount point to be /.
10. Id leave other partition configuration until the point that you can boot Linux.
11. Carry on and install whatever packages/components you require as standard.
12. When you’re prompted to install the GRUB bootloader into the MBR – SAY NO
13. You’ll be asked where you want to install the bootloader.  My partition was /dev/cciss/c0d0p1.
14. Finish off the Installer, remove the CD and Reboot.
15. Fingers x’d, you’ll get GRUB boot menu.  Mine then refused to boot the OS saying that the Operating System wasn’t found.   I edited the initial boot menu because it was referring to HD (1,0).  I changed this to HD (0,0) and it booted.
16. Login to the console.
17. If the GRUB editing worked, make sure to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and permanently change the setting to HD (0,0) for each of the menu items.
    

Cool Runnings:-
This server when running at full tilt with the fans is a noisy noisy beasty! However, you can control those fans to make them run at a dull roar rather than full hurricane force chat.  Follow the instructions from Jonas Bjork related to Ubuntu. Debian works exactly the same way, but you’ll need to install SNMPD and libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 (the latter you’ll have to manually download the .deb from the Etch repository).  Once its all installed, run the ‘hpasm activate’ command and follow the on-screen instructions.

Profit!

Phish and Chips?

Do you use Windows Live/MSN/Hotmail/Windows Passport?  What about Google, AOL and Yahoo services?  If so, you may be well changing your password.  A large list of user accounts are believed to have been ‘phished’ from Internet users across the globe, originally thought to be centered on the Windows Live services, but now appears to be spread across many of the top companies.

Now, Phishing is quite a common occurrence related to IT security, but it certainly serves as a reminder that you should follow a few simple rules on the Internet and in Email.

• Always use different, complex passwords on each service you register for.
• Change those passwords on a regular basis
• Never respond to requests for information, either via email or pop-up messages.  If you receive an email from a company that you do business with, go to their website directly – NEVER EVER EVER click on a link provided by email.
• Engage brain before operating hand or mouth – Stop, take a deep breath and think about what you’re being asked for.  Don’t give it out and if you feel like you have to, why not give false information instead?
• Check your statements/accounts regularly for any irregularities, and if you spot anything, contact the company IMMEDIATLY.
• Many companies have a contact us area which you can report phishy emails to.  They will be able to investigate on your behalf and notify the relevant authorities.  Again,  visit their website by entering the address manually in the browser rather than clicking a link.

If you have difficulty remembering your passwords or building complex passwords to use,  why not investigate the KeePass utility.   This is a secure password vault in which you can store a database of usernames, sites and passwords in a safe, encrypted manor. I’ve started using it on my home computer and also on my mobile phone whilst at work (with synchronised databases) and allows me to keep a record of all of the websites Ive registered for and the secure password associated with it.  That way, all I have to do is remember one secure password to unlock the vault rather than 50-100 or use the same password across multiple services.  You should just remember to back it up regularly to ensure that you don’t loose all your passwords in one fell swoop!

The BBC have an article on the attack HERE.

Re-Re-Tune (when the crowd say Bo Selecta?)

Hopefully it won’t have escaped your attention, but Freeview watchers will need to retune your freeview box/TV tomorrow afternoon/evening (Wednesday 30th).

The BBC have put together an excellent overview of what's happening:-

What's happening and when?

On Wednesday morning, 30 September, the Freeview service is being updated. Some TV and radio channels will move position. If people don't retune their equipment they will no longer receive them. The move involves around 25 million Freeview TV sets, set-top boxes and digital recorders, including TopUp TV and BT Vision boxes. It doesn't affect satellite or cable systems such as Sky or Freesat or cable.

Why is the change needed?

To make channel Five available in half a million more homes and to prepare for high-definition broadcasts.

What happens if I don't retune?

On the affected channels, you'll see a message telling you the channel has moved and asking you to retune. Anyone who needs help can find it at www.tvretune.co.uk or via a telephone helpline - 08456 01 11 22.

Which channels are mainly affected?

Five is moving, and so are ITV3 and ITV4. There will also be a new TV channel called Quest.

Some BBC radio stations will be affected in areas that have already gone through digital switchover. Listeners in the Border TV region, the West country and some parts of Wales will lose these stations unless they retune.

Will some channels disappear altogether?

Around 460,000 homes - which get their TV signals through relay transmitters - will no longer receive ITV3 or ITV4. That means they will lose some European football matches and classic TV dramas such as Cracker and Poirot.

The Community Channel will no longer be available on Freeview in areas that have gone through switchover.

Can all Freeview equipment be retuned?

Around 22,000 older set-top boxes may no longer work.

If you’re not sure how to retune your Freeview, there is an excellent website www.tvretune.co.uk which has instructions for many devices – its something to make a note of as you should be doing a retune every couple of months to make sure you get the latest channel changes, especially in the run up to Digital Switchover.  And tuning digital equipment is much easier than the days of analogue – its usually a case of selecting an option from the on-screen menu and letting it run through.  Plus, a reminder to Cable and Satellite viewers (including Freesat), you don’t need to retune those set-top boxes.

Ask a Stupid Question….

Get a stupid Answer.   Or maybe not today (September 28th) as today is ‘Ask a Stupid Question Day’.  According to wikipedia "the roots of this special day go back to the 1980s. At the time, there was a movement by teachers to try to get kids to ask more questions in the classroom. The kids would then ask stupid questions to make the teachers happy."

I think this is a brilliant idea designed to get people thinking about crazy problems and perhaps finding a solution, and it should be encouraged. In fact, according to various newspapers, schools are starting to embrace the day and get pupils to think outside the box, perhaps escaping from the conscripted nature of the National Curriculum. 

The telegraph has an excellent list of questions reproduced here.

Q: What's the opposite of a camel?
A: The opposite of a camel is a soap dish: it has dimples instead of humps and lives in a mostly moist area.

Q: How long would it take to roast a fully grown Indian elephant?
A: An Indian elephant, average weight 5000kg, would take 2916 hours and 40 minutes to roast to perfection (based on 35 minutes a kilogram). You would need an extremely large serving dish.

Q: In Mars Bars, how much taller is Jeremy Clarkson than Tom Cruise?
A: A Mars bar is four inches long. Jeremy Clarkson measures 19.25 Mars Bars (six feet five), while Tom Cruise is 16.75 Mars bars high (five feet seven). That's a 2.5 Mars bar difference.

Q: How long would it take a snail to slide around the world?
A: 34,519 days at 0.7 miles a day or 0.03 miles per hour, the average speed for a garden snail.

Q: What’s the funniest word in the world?
A: The funniest word in the English language is fartlek (an athletic training regime); other funny words include furphy, pratfall, parp and firkin.

Q: What is the best type of biscuit to make a mattress from?
A: The best type of biscuits to make a mattress from would be fig rolls or strawberry Newtons. They would be soft, but still provide some back support.

Q: I want to write a film script which makes me millions: what should it be about?
A: Based on the top-grossing films, your script should be about a young wizard and a robot looking for a ring on a pirate ship which sinks. Good luck.

Q: In an average lifetime, how much gas will a human expel?
A: The average adult has 14 occurrences of flatulence per day. Total expulsion is about 538ml, making approximately 14,727 litres of gas expelled in a life time.

Q: How long is a piece of string?
A: A piece of string is twice as long as half its length. It is usually shorter than the amount you need to wrap a parcel, but always long enough to tangle.

Q: When will I die?
A: You will die in a freak parachuting accident aged 98. Your memorial service, attended by more than 1,000 of your closest friends, will be at Wembley.

Brilliant!  Have you got any daft questions, or have you been asked any recently?  Why not leave them in the comments below.

Creating a Monopoly…

This may have passed you by, but Monopoly have launched a new free online game called Monopoly City Streets.   This game uses Google Maps and Open Street Map to allow you to buy “real” life streets and build properties on them (all be it virtually). 

You start off with 3 million monopoly dollars,  buy up streets then can build a variety of properties on those streets.  The bigger the property, the more expensive it is to build, but the more rent you get back from it.  Additionally, you get random chance cards, some good (such as allowing you to to build protective ‘stadiums’ or ‘parks’) and bad (such as getting fined for not getting planning permission). You can also interfere with other peoples games, such as building a hazard (which cancels any rent on that road) or demolishing one of their buildings.  If you fancy it, you can make offers on other peoples streets and properties.

Its a great game which suffered from oversubscription to start with causing the servers to overload, but this has now been sorted after a reset and is ticking along nicely.  Its great fun playing an MMORPG based around Monopoly and Id recommend anyone to try it.

Its accessible at www.monopolycitystreets.com but it may not be accessible from your work computer – try it at home!

Open Sauce (and how to get there)…

OK, so I’ve blogged about it before, but I wanted to talk about an Open Source development called OpenStreetMap. This is an Open software development using user generated mapping information to generate GIS data. 

So why the need for this, when TomTom, Google Earth et al all do an excellent job of providing mapping information.  Well, the simple reason is that companies own the copyright to their mapping data and information, meaning that if you want to use it, you have to pay a (some times hefty) licence for the privilege.  Alternatively, you COULD rip the information off one of these providers, but the chances are you’ll get caught.  Even a respected company like the AA has fallen into this trap, copying Ordinance Survey maps and reselling them as their own work.  You would think that a map is a map and its impossible to tell what's been copied, but mapping companies are clever – they add subtle details into maps which won’t affect their day to day use, but act as markers to highlight plagiarists. For example, they’ll add a small fake road at the end of a street, where only terrace houses exist.  Or, they’ll add a kink in a road that doesn’t exist – it doesn’t affect the general use, but unless you go there and map the information yourself, you’d never know it wasn’t really like that.

So OpenStreetMap is designed to be the wikipedia of maps – people go out into their community, collect mapping data (using GPS logs, photo’s and notes) and then converting this into a digital map available to the community under a creative commons licence.  The process of generating a map is

1) Go out and get the data – Use a GPS to log your position, make notes of street names,  any points of interest along the way (such as pubs, post boxes and the like) and perhaps even photo’s of the area.

2) Map the data – Import your GPS track logs,  convert this into mapping data such as streets, street names, speed limits and the like.

3) Publish your work – Send the data to the OpenStreetMap server for use in the map.

If you visit www.openstreetmap.org and have a look around, you’ll notice that many Urban area’s of the UK are reasonably well mapped.  This is the case of my local area, apart from the side streets in my neighbourhood.  I’ve already added a couple of streets to see how reasonably easy it is, and now I’ve got the bug to start gathering and updating more data.  One useful feature of the service being opened is that you can make changes where you spot a mistake on the map – so for example, if you spot a speed limit has changed, whilst it might take TomTom 18months+ to update the map,  you can make the change there and then, and then that will be available to all.  Id highly recommend anyone with a GIS, mapping, geographical or community interest to get involved and expand the quality of the data – why not have a mapping party and get loads of people involved – all you need is a GPS logging device (many phones are now capable of this), somewhere to record notes, and a bit of patience actually map your area.

Ay? DSL?

As well as my new phone, I’ve got round to sorting my broadband provider.  Regular readers will remember my quest to find a new ADSL service after hitting problems with my current supplier, Demon.  Well, its taken a while but I’ve finally got my MAC code and I’m transitioning to my new service provider AAISP hopefully sometime on Monday.

I’ve chosen AAISP for several reasons:-

1) Their service is aimed at a corporate or ‘professional’ users – their website isn’t that pretty, but it has lots of technical information for those that are interested.

2) Whilst not an ‘unlimited’ service, they offer good Fair usage polices with the option to buy more if you exceed the limits.  They operate a ‘daytime (9am-6pm)’ and ‘evening (6pm-midnight)’ tariff structure with transfers outside these times FREE!.  I’ve gone for 4GB day/100GB evening rate because I generally use the Internet during the evening, but I do have stuff synchronising during the day too.  I’ll have to see how it goes because you can adjust it monthly up or down depending on requirements.  And having unlimited out of hours downloads is great because I can just schedule them to start & stop during this time.

3) When you sign up, you can request as many external IP addresses as you like (within reason).  So I’ve got 5 routable static IP addresses available to use, plus they support IPv6 natively and they’ve assigned me a 48 bit IPv6 subnet – I could have 2^64 devices on my network without running out of capacity.  So if everyone in the world decides to come round my house and each has a smartphone and a laptop,  there’s still plenty to go around.

4) Bull plop isn’t bundled as a free extra.  You only have to look at their support section to see this – They’ll admit when they make a mistake, but they’ll also say when the problem lies ‘upstream’ with a provider, e.g. BT.  Plus, this is the first bit in their terms and conditions:-

It is up to you to pick the right service for you, and some services have usage limits. The internet is big and complicated and we do not control it. The internet has many good and useful things in it, but it also has bad things, so do not blame us for anything you find. It is up to you to protect your network. You must take responsibility for what you do with the service, and for anyone you let use the service. The internet has rules, so play fair. Things can break! If they do, we will try and fix things as quickly as we can. It can take days to fix some problems. We allocate you internet addresses, but they do not belong to you, and we can change them if we need to.

Quality! 

So, fingers x’d, things will go across smoothly on Monday.  I will be spending the weekend reconfiguring my router for the new service.  Ohh, and people who live in the Midlands and have broadband, I’ve some news for you on some major BT changes coming very soon – watch this space!

Finally a new phone…

Well, I’ve finally got myself a new phone, after the old Ameo started being a bit creaky and a bit bulky to carry around, and I've replaced it with a new Smartphone, the HTC Touch Diamond 2.

You may remember me blogging about this phone WAY back in February and now I’ve finally got my hands on this great bit of kit. And what’s even better is that is that the ‘unofficial’ development channels have had a chance to do some magic and work the phone into a real beaut…  The reason I now go for HTC devices is that there is lots of 3rd party development work, not only on applications, but on the underlying operating system.  

A few of the phone’s specs:

3.2” WVGA screen (800x480).
5mp Camera.
TouchFlo 3d interface.
A-GPS.
Upto 32GB storage (8GB MiniSD fitted).
Wifi/Bluetooth/HSDPA.
FM Radio
Delivered with Windows Mobile 6.1, but upgraded to a beta release of Mobile 6.5. 

I have to say, I’m amazing impressed with the phone and HTC have really stepped upto the bat to compete with the iPhone.  The biggest way they’ve done this is to ‘hide’ as much of Windows Mobile as they can within the TF3D interface.  This allows you to make calls, see texts and emails, launch programmes and change settings from within this ‘front end’ with finger gestures, rather than having to use a stylus.  A stylus is still provided for when a program doesn’t support touch gestures, but this is becoming less common these days.

Another massive improvement to the earlier TouchFlo implementations is the contact integration.  This is now designed to be like a mini CMS solution, meaning that each contact has a ‘profile’ area, where all communication with that person is logged, be it phone calls, text messages, email or even facebook feeds. That's right, it links with your facebook profile and pulls down status updates, photo’s and other information from your facebook friends – Genius!  Hopefully the next revision will also support Twitter feeds which is the one thing missing!

The only trouble I’m having from the phone is that its too shiny!  The glass, and satin case pickup fingerprints merely through the power of thought, but hopefully I’ll get a case that will protect against this! :)

SysAdmin Day

Today is the 10th annual system administrator day, where you give thanks for the service and assistance provided by your IT Engineer’s, head geeks and tech guru’s.  Celebrated every year on the last Friday in July, it is a day where we accept gifts, praise, cards and food in return for a years hard work.

From the official sysadminday.com website, here is a description of what a sysadmin does…

What is a system administrator? Well, look at the title. Administrator of systems. A system administrator takes care of systems.

Now, most people read "system" to mean an individual computer, and think that all a sysadmin does is clean viruses off your computer and replace your monitor. That's not wrong -- but it is only one page of the whole story.

A real computing system is larger. Very few computers work just on their own anymore; when you use the web, play a game online, share files with a friend, or send email, you're using a complex and intricate collection of computers, networks and software that come together to do the job you're asking.

A sysadmin manages these systems -- they figure out how to bring storage from one server, processing from another, backups from a third and networking from a fourth computer all together, working seamlessly. For you.

It's not an easy task. Your sysadmins need to understand in depth computing protocols. They often have to know something about programming, something about hardware, a lot about software -- and even more about the people using their system.

A sysadmin is a professional, with complex skills, ethical challenges, and a daunting job. Many, if not most, people find computers difficult to use, and sometimes they're unreliable. Being a sysadmin doesn't absolve someone of dealing with unreliable computers. Oh, one can dream of such a day, but the opposite is true; no one sees more dead computers in a day than a sysadmin. No one sees them doing truly baffling things, and no one has more stories of computers failing, acting possessed, or even catching on fire.

The challenge of a sysadmin is making a computing system -- a whole network of resources and servers and software -- work together, work right, work even when parts of it fail -- and work for you.

That's the most important job of the sysadmin: to work for you. To take the staggering array of technologies, acronyms, protocols, networks, vendors, budgets, limited time, competing products, and threats to the computing network, assemble them all together in a working system. Their job is not only to be the geek in the corner who types all day. What they're doing is bringing these diverse pieces of technology into order, and fitting them together to fill your needs at work and home; to translate the world of computing into human terms.

This is a daunting task and we're still at the cutting edge; we're not perfect, and the field is still figuring itself out. Being a sysadmin takes a certain boldness, to be one of the first people to take on the challenge of turning difficult computers into easy to use systems. But hundreds of thousands of people are working in that field now, from the entry level help desk tech to the corporate CIOs and everyone in between.

So when you think of a sysadmin, think of the people who run the servers that help you clean it off, the people who run your backups to make sure your data is safe, the people who bring you the network, the people who monitor it for security -- and yes, the person who cleans the virus off your computer and replaces your monitor.

And here is a list of ways to utilise your sys admin (in this instance called Ted) to obtain the best value…

• Make sure to save all your MP3 files on your network drive. No sense in wasting valuable space on your local drive! Plus, Ted loves browsing through 100+ GB of music files while he backs up the servers.
• Play with all the wires you can find. If you can't find enough, open something up to expose them. After you have finished, and nothing works anymore, put it all back together and call Ted. Deny that you touched anything and that it was working perfectly only five minutes ago. Ted just loves a good mystery. For added effect you can keep looking over his shoulder and ask what each wire is for.
• Never write down error messages. Just click OK, or restart your computer. Ted likes to guess what the error message was.
• When talking about your computer, use terms like "Thingy" and "Big Connector."
• If you get an EXE file in an email attachment, open it immediately. Ted likes to make sure the anti-virus software is working properly.
• When Ted says he coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for him to remember your password.
• When you call Ted to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under a year-old pile of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, unpaid bills, bowling trophies and Popsicle sticks. Ted doesn't have a life, and he finds it deeply moving to catch a glimpse of yours.
• When Ted sends you an email marked as "Highly Important" or "Action Required", delete it at once. He's probably just testing some new-fangled email software.
• When Ted's eating lunch at his desk or in the lunchroom, walk right in, grab a few of his fries, then spill your guts and expect him to respond immediately. Ted lives to serve, and he's always ready to think about fixing computers, especially yours.
• When Ted's at the water cooler or outside taking a breath of fresh air, find him and ask him a computer question. The only reason he takes breaks at all is to ferret out all those employees who don't have email or a telephone.
• Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
• When the photocopier doesn't work, call Ted. There's electronics in it, so it should be right up his alley.
• When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at your home computer, call Ted. He enjoys fixing telephone problems from remote locations. Especially on weekends.
• When something goes wrong with your home PC, dump it on Ted's chair the next morning with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. Ted just loves a good mystery.
• When you have Ted on the phone walking you through changing a setting on your PC, read the newspaper. Ted doesn't actually mean for you to DO anything. He just loves to hear himself talk.
• When your company offers training on an upcoming OS upgrade, don't bother to sign up. Ted will be there to hold your hand when the time comes.
• When the printer won't print, re-send the job 20 times in rapid succession. That should do the trick.
• When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all the printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.
• Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.
• Don't read the operator's manual. Manuals are for wussies.
• If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to demonstrate your fledgling expertise by updating the network drivers for you and all your co-workers. Ted will be grateful for the overtime when he has to stay until 2:30am fixing all of them.
• When Ted's fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your Whopper with cheese in his face. He functions better when he's slightly dizzy from hunger.
• When Ted asks you whether you've installed any new software on your computer, LIE. It's no one else's business what you've got on your computer.
• If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the monitor and stuff the cable under it. Those skinny Mouse cables were designed to have 55 lbs. of computer monitor crushing them.
• If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame Ted for not upgrading it sooner. Hell, it's not your fault there's a half pound of pizza crust crumbs, nail clippings, and big sticky drops of Mountain Dew under the keys.
• When you get the message saying "Are you sure?", click the "Yes" button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?
• Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that boneheaded computer crap." It never bothers Ted to hear his area of professional expertise referred to as boneheaded crap.
• Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. God forbid somebody else should sneak a one-page job in between your 500-page Word document.
• When you send that 500-page document to the printer, don't bother to check if the printer has enough paper. That's Ted's job.
• When Ted calls you 30 minutes later and tells you that the printer printed 24 pages of your 500-page document before it ran out of paper, and there are now nine other jobs in the queue behind yours, ask him why he didn't bother to add more paper.
• When you receive a 130 MB movie file, send it to everyone as a high-priority mail attachment. Ted's provided plenty of disk space and processor capacity on the new mail server for just those kinds of important things.
• When you bump into Ted in the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, ask him computer questions. He works 24/7, and is always thinking about computers, even when he's at super-market buying toilet paper and doggie treats.
• If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. Ted will be there for you when your son's illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes the Access database keel over and die.
• When you bring Ted your own "no-name" brand PC to repair for free at the office, tell him how urgently he needs to fix it so you can get back to playing EverQuest. He'll get on it right away, because everyone knows he doesn't do anything all day except surf the Internet.
• Don't ever thank Ted. He loves fixing everything AND getting paid for it!

So, give thanks for all that IT has bestowed on you, and feel free to pass unto your engineer one of these many gift ideas… 

50 Fun things to do in a lift

I’ve been reminded of this I received some years back…

1. Make race car noises when anyone gets on or off.
2. Blow your nose and offer to show the contents of your tissue to other passengers.
3. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, "Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!"
4. Whistle the first seven notes of "It's a Small World" incessantly.
5. Sell Girl Scout cookies.
6. On a long ride, crash from side to side as if you''re on rough seas.
7. Shave. (Especially if you're a woman.)
8. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask: "Got enough air in there?"
9. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.
10. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
11. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
12. Lean over to another passenger and whisper: "Noogie patrol coming!"
13. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you, "Admiral".
14. One word: Flatulence!
15. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go "plink" at the bottom.
16. Do Tai Chi exercises.
17. Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce, "I've got new socks on!"
18. When at least 8 people have boarded, moan from the back, "Oh, not now. Damn motion sickness!"
19. Give religious literature to each passenger.
20. Meow occasionally.
21. Bet the other passengers you can fit a twenty-pence in your nose.
22. Frown and mutter "Gotta go, gotta go," then sigh and say, "oops!"
23. Show other passengers a wound and ask if it looks infected.
24. Sing, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" while continually pushing buttons.
25. Shout, "Bombs away!" whenever the elevator descends.
26. Walk on with a cooler that says "human head" on the side.
27. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce, "You're one of THEM!" and move to the far corner of the lift.
28. Burp, and then say "Mmmm...tasty!"
29. Leave a box between the doors.
30. Ask each passenger getting on if you can push the button for them.
31. Wear a puppet on your hand and make it talk to the other passengers.
32. Start a sing-along.
33. When the lift is silent, look around and ask, "Is that your phone?"
34. Play the harmonica.
35. Shadow box.
36. Say, "Ding!" at each floor.
37. Lean against the button panel.
38. Say, "I wonder what all these do" and push the red buttons.
39. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.
40. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your "personal space".
41. Bring a chair along.
42. Take a bite of a sandwich and ask another passenger: "Wanna see wha in muh mouf?"
43. Blow spit bubbles.
44. Pull your gum out of your mouth in long strings.
45. Announce in a demonic voice: "I must find a more suitable host body."
46. Carry a blanket and clutch it protectively.
47. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
48. Wear "X-Ray Specs" and leer suggestively at other passengers.
49. Stare at your thumb and say, "I think it's getting larger."
50. If anyone brushes against you, recoil and holler, "Bad touch!"

A Warning for the late 00’s

I laughed at this,  then realised that actually it probably DOES apply to me.