Lynxworks » Rant

Keeping resolutions

Dougie — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:11:03 +0000

Have I? Yes and no.

Studying is a yes. I found that the 45/15 method is working well, allowing me to do MS221 and MT264 (the latter has a TMA due next week). I might have to extend this – I want to really have a good grasp of MS221.

Exercise is a no. I had assumed that attending PT (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), rehab lessons (Tuesday and twice on Thursday) would mean I only had to make an effort to do my own fitness at the weekends. However I had a meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday which completely got in the way. I’m going to start using Daily Mile again next week to give me an incentive. Rehab was an absolute killer on Thursday, my calves are still aching on Saturday. As for diet, I ate a load of crap tonight but mostly managed to stick to three light meals each day. I’ve been getting up a little earlier and making breakfast. This has worked out quite well because I’m not fighting with the kids to get into the bathroom – its been a better start to the day.

Money has been the usual post Christmas study but Lisa has picked up some baby-sitting which has allowed me to grocery shop this week without touching the money in the bank. Its a long way to my £3000 goal but its certainly been a welcome start.

The reading has been pretty respectable – I’ve finished “The Art of Readable Code” (an interesting look at improving the way we lay out code), Mastering Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 (which was a lot less dry than these books usually are) and “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (not as attention holding as Starship Troopers but very good). I’ll start “Stranger in a Strange Land” this week.

Simplifying has proved a bigger task than I envisaged. I gave a way a lot of clothes, so was able to lay out my wardrobe with hanging shelves. Now my clothes are organised, its a two minute job to grab what I need for the gym and the next day at work. I cleared out and re-organised my kit cupboard, the next step for that is to get some of the obsolete stuff de-kitted. I picked up some rattan organising drawers (£5 on a local buy and sell site) which has helped Lisa by me not leaving everything down the side of the sofa. Next week I’d like to grab some archive boxes and store away OU material from completed modules.

Assumption

Dougie — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:46:30 +0000

Someone asked me yesterday “You’re good with computers, can you give me a copy of Photoshop?“. Aside from the fact I run Linux on most of my computers, I’m not keen on being accused of software piracy on the basis that I’m “good with computers” or any other reason. I made the mistake of asking why he needed it, he wanted to resize some pictures – so I suggested Paint.net.

His answer? “Oh no that’s free, it’s bound to be rubbish.”

Strange, I thought he wanted Photoshop free.

Black Ops “Strict”

Dougie — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 08:37:44 +0000

Odd solution to an irritating problem – Black Ops say “Strict” in multi-player, even with “Open” NAT. Load Modern Warfare 2, go to multi-player on-line up to the point where you choose the game type and eject the disc using the button on the front of the PS3. Insert Black Ops and load it, go to multi-player and you will be open.

I have no idea why this works, I got it off a forum post. I have tried putting the PS3 in a DMZ but it doesn’t work, so it’s not as if the game uses non-standard ports – it’s just bugged. It only needs to be done once each session – you can play something else and reload Black Ops as long as you don’t reboot.

Black Ops is an OK game, it’s not the best FPS and the single player is woefully short (with a very poor story) – its multi-player where the fun is to be had. With the latest DLC out on the 10th June, it’s a shame that Activision and Treyarch can’t get it together enough to sort this out. The truth is though that until we stop buying DLC, there’s no incentive for the publishers to fix bugs.

I killed my PS3

Dougie — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 15:53:05 +0000

I’ve been playing the brilliant “Assassin’s Creed – Brotherhood”. So much so that I’ve killed my PS3 – it now overheats and turns itself off after about three minutes (if its booted from cold), beeps three times and flashes the power light. Mind you I’ve had it for about four years.

I bought a new one (surprised that the hard disk size going up seems to have reduced any price decreases over time).

Seems like a faulty fan – sounds like a bearing grinding. Anyone any experience with them?

Don’t fix it, censor it

Dougie — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:44:25 +0000

The Security Research Computer Lab at Cambridge University posted an article about industry response to a fundamental flaw in the “chip and pin” system in February. The paper, by Omar Choudary (a PhD student), highlights a flaw in the standard that permits the use of any PIN number. The University passed it to industry two months before publishing.

Now, some eight months later, the only bank known to have addressed this is Barclays. Instead of addressing the issue, the bankers’ trade association feels the best course of action is to tell the University its being irresponsible [pdf] in publishing the information! Given the Streisand Effect, is that not trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted? The University’s response is an emphatic no, at the moment.

It is interesting that the UK Cards Association feels an offence was committed in proving the vulnerability. I would have thought they’d welcome the information, given their front page statement:

We inform and engage with stakeholders to advance the industry for the ultimate benefit of our members’ consumer and retail customers. Our work includes preventing card fraud, contributing to legislative changes, collating industry statistics and developing industry standards and best practices.

Linux is not a get of jail free card

Dougie — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:15:43 +0000

I’ve been having line problems with my ISP – British Telecom. To cut a long story short we see a 75% speed drop, phone BT, jump through umpteen hoops and they reset the profile at the exchange. The fault is with the line and it’s intermittent.

That doesn’t really bother me. The customer support agent told me to use BT’s speed diagnostic tool. Now aside from why their tool would be better, its not really an option as its a poorly written Java applet that doesn’t seem to work with Firefox or Chromium in Linux. Now I dare say I could get it to work but why spend the energy? When I mentioned it to the agent, he told me BT doesn’t officially support Linux and helpfully suggested I keep a Windows laptop handy.

Are you kidding? Keep a Windows laptop handy? There are reasons why I use Linux, there are reasons people use Macs and Windows too – they chose to. What the hell has that got to do with my ISP? I have no software from them, it’s a wireless access point they provide. Do you know what operating system it runs? Linux.

Blogging platforms

Dougie — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:54:03 +0000

Has anyone else noticed a large amount of ping backs to link farms from Planet Ubuntu feeds over the last few days? I’m getting a fair few. I’d give an example but if I link to a site that takes my posts from a syndicated site and creates posts that are syndicated on other sites I might create some sort of perpetual motion blog post and consume the Internet (it might seem far fetched but what if Robert Morris had stopped to think).

I find these objectionable though – they appear to be WordPress and I guess are using a plugin to pull feeds in and publish as articles. They’re not as bad as flat out plagiarism – which I’ve experienced. Mind you even that isn’t the worst, I once wrote a howto which was CC licensed and I realised it had been ripped off when someone posted a comment on it suggesting (quite strongly) that I had taken it from the thief!

So it occurs to me that maybe this is a WordPress thing. Then again maybe not. Like so many of us I get stuck in my ways and WordPress is like a pair of comfy shoes. Maybe I should try a new platform, so I wondered what was popular out there in Ubuntu-land.

I’ve tried Drupal (I don’t like it, sorry Emma), Serendipity and Pixie (I quite liked that but baulked at the theming system). Mind you I also have quite a lot of time to myself over the next four months, maybe I should roll my own, I’ve hacked around in PHP but have never developed a large project using it.

So let me know, suggestions on a postcard. Maybe just a comment here will suffice.

Ubuntu spot the difference

Dougie — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:19:59 +0000

After writing documentation for many years, once in a while I come across a post on the Internet that makes me wonder why I bother. So I thought we could turn it into a game.

Basically it’s like spot the difference, see how many things you can spot that are wrong with it and post them here.

Here is the post in question and it is a cracker. I can think of several things that are wrong with it but see what you can come up with. Here’s a starting hint – man visudo.