An Impressive Need

January 5th, 2009

Last night, I amazed myself when I discovered I had a real-life, genuine, need for a Farraday cage.

I was trying to install my parent’s new Wireless printer, but unfortunately, it had joined the wrong wireless network and I couldn’t get it to leave that network and join the correct one.

Stupidly, the printer came with a utility so that you could set the IP address, and from there you could then connect to a web interface so that you can set which wireless network to join, and security settings, etc. That’s all well and good, but if it’s on the wrong network altogether, then you can’t set the IP, you can’t connect to the web interface, and you therefore can’t set the security information!

So, I decided to resolve the situation by blocking out the other wireless signal. I attempted to construct a Farraday cage with a Quality Street tin, and then place the correct wireless router, and the printer, inside the cage.

Sadly, Quality Street tins don’t make good Farraday cages.

I eventually resolved the situation by moving the printer next to the router, connecting it to the router with an ethernet cable, printing out the network configuration that the printer had picked up with DHCP, using the utility to set a static IP address, and then connecting to the web interface to force the correct wireless network and the correct security settings.

Jesus. Such an unnecessary hassle!

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Ant Building

July 6th, 2006

I think this post by Stefan Bodewig kind of sum’s up what I’m thinking about the Ant build utility.

My company started using Ant about a year ago. We use it to compile Progress 4GL code, as well as Progress Webspeed files by using the PCT extension.

When I first saw it, I didn’t like it. I decided that using XML as a form of programming language did not make sense. I have no problem with using XML to describe build rules; the problem I have is related to the way that you can specify “build target a, followed by target b”.

But having recently gone through the process of installing it and editting a build XML file, I have to say I’m very impressed! I can overlook my distaste for “programming with XML”, because the rest flows very well indeed. Plus, I can understand it much more that I can makefiles.

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Fun with VMWare, New UML Tool and IPv6

July 3rd, 2006

On Friday, I had the day off, so I decided to play with VMWare Server on a new PC that I had inherited. I’m so impressed so far, for a free product, it does so much.

I’d played with VMWare Player at home before, and within the last year at work we’ve gone VMWare crazy and now host an awful lot of our servers in VMWare images, so I’m well used to their products by now.

I’m impressed by VMWare server though. It does so much more than VMWare Player. Even allowing somebody to install the VMWare-Tools into an image makes the “upgrade” a must.

I spent Friday building some images for a project I’m about to start work on, so that I can test it on different variants of Linux and FreeBSD, as well as on the Windows machine I have. Didn’t hit a single problem with the images, and it even runs Haiku incredibly well (that’s a one up on BeOS which doesn’t work in a VM at all).

Over the rest of the weekend, I’ve also discovered an excellent UML editor for Windows, called StarUML (http://www.staruml.com), which was a professionally produced product, but has now been made Open Source and Free (as in beer, I think).

I also did a little research on IPv6 which proved very helpful. I knew a little about it from a 5 minute aside in a university lecture course, but from what I’ve learnt over the weekend, a lot of thought has gone into the mechanism. The new style of development interface makes a lot more sense, seems very compatible with IPv4 and means that future version of the protocol will require fewer implementation changes! (Lets hear it for commons sense!)

So, put all those points together, and you can pretty much tell that I’m writing some kind of server, but that’s all I’m going to say!

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Building Haiku

May 19th, 2006

As I type, I have an old PC currently running BeOS 5 (which just flies!), and it’s currently downloading the current SVN checkout of Haiku.

At the same time, I’m listening to my brand new copy of the new Snow Patrol album “Eyes Open” - It’s every little bit as good as I hoped it would be, and then some more.

Excellent!

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Somebody didn’t think of the name did they!

April 28th, 2006

OK, heard it on the radio this morning, and now I’m at work, it seems the Internet is somewhat alive with it as well.

The name for Nintendo’s new console is officially “Wii”, as in “we”.

But they didn’t think very hard did they. Not sure whether this is just in the UK, but over here a “wee” means taking a piss. As in, “I’m going for a wee”.

“What do you want for Christmas this year little Johnny?”

“Well Daddy, I want a wee”.

The shameful thing is the working title “Revolution” made me want to buy one. Now I don’t. I really, really don’t. Change it back Nintendo, and stop with the “cute” stuff.

I believe this comment on Gizmodo sums it up quite amusingly

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An interesting look inside Mac Business Unit at Microsoft

April 21st, 2006

One of the guys from the Mac Business Unit (MacBU) at Microsoft has posted a picture tour on his blog. Its quite interesting, and worth a look, even if you aren’t a Mac fan. (Via TUAW)

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This is ridiculous

April 13th, 2006

OK, I don’t get this guys logic at all.

He’s building his own projector rig for his computer (I’m guessing that he wants to do the whole media centre thing, or may be he just wants to looks at things just that little bit bigger - I don’t know, it’s not the issue though).

So, he decides to take the hard disks out of his case, put them on the floor, and cool them using 4 fans with LEDs on them. He then posts instructions on how to create a switch to turn the lights off.

Why? I mean, why didn’t he just buy fans with no lights on in the first place! It would have been cheaper, plus you’ve made your “cool looking rig” look rubbish by having a huge switch box taped to your desk with loads of leads coming down!

And besides, does a hard disk generate that much heat? To me, it doesn’t really, and if it does, then if it’s outside the case, then it probably doesn’t need cooling, but at most 1 fan should do it!

And I don’t get me started on the whole case mod thing - it’s a collection of Chavs making their computers look “cool” by putting stupid lights on them and making them insanely cold, which won’t affect the performance that much. All the Chavs have done is migrate the “lets de-badge my Saxo and put a skirt and a big exhaust on it - it’ll make it go faster” ethos to their computers!

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How Did I Miss That!

March 21st, 2006

Just been looking at the PHP documentation for the mysql_query function. I couldn’t possibly imagine the number of times I’ve used that function, and the number of queries that I have written.

I’ve just discovered this little bit in the documentationThe query string should not end with a semicolon.Wow! I’ve always insisted that it is present! It certainly works if it is present!

Now I’m thinking ‘Why not?’. I mean, it’s part of the SQL language to put a semi-colon on the end, so why shouldn’t I do it when I execute a perfectly valid query from with PHP?

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How Can I Take This Seriously?

March 14th, 2006

Thanks to reddit, I found a guide on when to use the correct image format for the web. Technically, the article is correct, and I agree with the cases the guy puts forward for each image type. It’s maybe the not the way I would go about describing the situation, but it’s not factually incorrect.

However, what really worried me was the end of the first paragraph:Yes, this does require a fair bit of reading and understanding, so if you aren’t going to be bothered close your browser now and save my bandwidth.Erm…. too late! It doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to appreciate the technical knowledge of this guy, when his first paragraph gives you a huge clue that the guy doesn’t know how web pages are delivered to browsers! Oh well.

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OpenStreetMap

March 7th, 2006

I think this has to be the ultimate in the “Open Source, Working Together” philosophy!

OpenStreetMap is a site that takes GPS data from users, and allows others to create road maps out of that data. In this respect, the work is free of all copyright, and should be correct as far as the data is available (i.e. no errors, and no fake roads added to ensure copyright status). For more information, follow the “Help/Wiki” link on the left of the homepage.

I don’t personally have a GPS receiver, so I’m probably going to have a go at joining up nodes and labelling roads!

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