Lee Findlow | Blog

Setup DynDNS with your own domain

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:31:34 GMT

Your IP (Internet Protocol) address to your computer is like what your address is to your home, somethingly which allows you to be uniquely identified so packets (or, erm, packages for the home address anthology) get sent to the correct destination. Really usefuly and ensures what is sent to you comes to you, arguably in a more reliable way than certain postal services. The difference between these is that in most cases, i.e. Unless you specifically opt to upgrade, your IP changes each and every time you reconnect to the internet, this problem doesn't affect most people as the average computer user probably doesn't know what an "IP" is, nor do they need to.

But there are the odd few, say, those who wish to run a web/ftp/ssh/any other server from home. It is all well and good telling everyone to look at your brilliant new site at 90.80.70.60, but then boom. Your router freezes due to all the traffic and you have to restart, 5 minutes later everything is up and running again but this time your brilliant new site has a brilliant new address of 90.80.70.40, uh-oh, now you have heaps of disgruntled visitors lost in the maze of the web, bit of a pain isn't it? Don't think Google would be where it is today id it's address changed every 5 minutes.

This is where Dynamic DNS providers, such as DynDNS come in. They allow you to setup a domain which points to your IP, and automagically updates when it changes, pretty useful. The only problem is that unless you cough up some cash you are limited to a subdomain of one of their 78 domains, still useful, but we can do better. Now, you could take the seemingly easy option of handing some money over to them for the privilege of using their name servers to direct your IP, or you can do a small modification to the DNS records of your current domain for almost identical effect. For the purpose of this I'm going to assume you have already got your free sub-domain setup with DynDNS, and just want your domain pointing to it.

Here's how in 4 simple steps:

Login to your Hosting/Domain/DNS Control panel (i.e. the place where you manage your domain).
You need to go to a page named Manage DNS, or Custom DNS, or something similar, from here you'll get a list of records related to the domain in question.
You need to either add or edit a record, the new record should be of the type CNAME, and the value/content should be "yourdyndnsaddress.dyndns.org." (replace as appropriate). Ensure that you keep the dot (.) at the end, otherwise stuff might not work as it should.
Thats it, you may have to wait a while for the updates to propagate, but you should soon be able to access your dynamically changing home IP address from a nice custom URL, and best of all you won't ever need to update it again!

Now, for the drawback. Because of the type of DNS Record I wouldn't recommend this on a traffic-heavy site, since to get to your site your computer has to do 2 DNS lookups, rather than one (first to see where your domain points to, then second to see which IP your DynDNS account is linked to). After-all, if you're running a traffic-heavy site from your own server on a Dynamic IP, maybe it's time to invest in a Static IP? For most people wanting to do this it won't be a problem though, and this small drawback is negligible considering for most people it isn't worth spending a great deal just for a domain which you feel looks better.

So, uses for this? Well, anything that requires for you to know your home IP really, here are some examples:

Running your own web server, with freelance work I often develop sites on my MacBook, and then provide clients with the relevant links to see the project, having a constantly-changing IP can be a pain as links often change, leading to those ghastly "Server Not Found" errors, using DynDNS gets rid of this problem, but then going one step further and using a custom domain makes everything look more professional.
VNC, lets you control your computer remotely without having to use any 3rd party software, having your own domain makes remembering the address even simpler.

As mentioned before, there are a lot more, you could even use this principle to create your own web host, simply repeating the steps for all the domains you want hosting (And configuring your web server appropriately).

Can you think of any more uses, or any potential problems with this? Let me know.

Apple USB Adaptor

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:44:19 GMT

So, I decided that charging my iPod via Laptop's USB port was beginning to be a pain, and the firewire charger from my iPod mini just needed replacing. For a start it had the old "clips" on the dock connector to stop it from coming unplugged. The result of these "troubles" is quite simple really, a brand new replacement :D

Naturally, this came in a nice appley box. Admittedly �20 for a charger is a bit on the steep side, but I had an Argos voucher which needed using, bringing the price to around a tenner. Much more reasonable. To my surprise I found that it came with a brand new USB cable, a nice little bonus which will make a handy spare, but I suppose it is justified given the price.

One of the most amazing things about these chargers is the size, compared to my MacBook charger it's tiny, compared to my old iPod charger it's tiny, simply brilliant!

Turtle in the snow!

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:23:38 GMT

Unfortunately, yet another post about the weather. Once it get's back to normal maybe more productive stuff will start appearing here.

Snow!

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:37:31 GMT

Like the rest of the UK, got quite a bit of snow here today. Unfortunately though, not quite enough for a "Snow Day". Got up this morning and tuned in to the good old Radio Joke hoping so much for my college (or, in fact, any of 2 schools, just to significantly increase the probability) to be called out, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Now I'm hoping for the same great weather tomorrow. Just looking out of the window seemed pretty promising. At least an inch over everywhere, and my car has turned a rather lovely shade of white in about an hour.

iWork '09 Pages: .doc Support

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:48:15 GMT

One of the issue's with Pages is it's lack of support for the .doc format, which is something that can't really be ignored as in most places trying to open a ".pages" document would be an absolute nightmare, so for now .doc is here to stay.

Pages work's fine when saving a document in .doc format, but as soon as you try to save it again (e.g. a simple change to it) you get presented with the following window:

Which is a right pain when you're trying to do virtually anything with a Word Document, so your options are don't save until you're finished and hope nothing goes wrong, keep going through the process above to save the document, or keep on reading to find a simple fix.

It's all in the .plist

In common with Apple's other recent "mishap", there are just a couple of things you need to change in a .plist file. It's nice & simple and only takes a couple of minutes, or if you're lazy you can download the file which I've posted below.

For the technically minded

What you'll need

For the sake of easiness I am be going to using Property List Editor, it comes included with Apple's developer tools, if you haven't got this installed it is still possible to do so, simply using TextEdit, although that is significantly more complicated, and I would reccomend that you download the .plist file at the end of this entry.

Update (11/8/09): As has been pointed out in the comments the actual plist entries which you are required to edit has changed with updated versions of iWork, please bear this in mind and look out for it when you follow this tutorial!

First off, you need to open the Pages.app package, to do this simply browse to it using finder, then right-click and click "Show Packages Contents".
Now a new Finder window will appear, this allows you to browse around the ... Package Contents, although for now we're only interested in one file, "Info.plist" (in the Contents folder). This is what appears to be Pages' main configuration file, so by editing it we can adjust the behaviour of it.
I would recommend that you make a backup of "Info.plist" before you do anything, just in case something bad happens, to do this simply copy it to somewhere you'll remember (like the Desktop). Now double click on the original file (within Package Contents) to open it with Property List Editor.
Now we're getting somewhere, you will see a view of the properties associated, you need to expand the "Root" by clicking the triangle/arrow to the right of it, and then expand the "CFBundleDocumentTypes" in the same way. This gives a list of numbers, and you then need to expand 8 and 9, which will let you view something similar to this:
The properties which you need to change are CFBundleTypeRole, for both instances (shown above) change them to "Editor" (without quotes), you can do this by double-clicking on where it says "Viewer". Now you just need to save the file (File>Save), close Property List Editor, and you're good to go.
Now when you open up a Word Document using Pages and try to save any pages it should all work seamlessly, although you may notice a small progress bar like this: Which is nothing to worry about, it just let's you know that all is working well.

Hopefully that was easy enough to accomplish, if not here's the easy version below:

For the not-so-technically minded

Here's a version of the above tutorial which accomplishes the same output but with fewer steps, just to make life easier for you ;)

Follow steps 1 and 2 above.
Download the updated Info.plist from here: Info.plist, you may need to tell your browser to download it (right-click, Save Link As).
Copy the new Info.plist into the Contents folder of the Package Contents window. Now just close this and re-open Pages to have the ability to save Word Documents.

Conclusion

I think that it is rather odd that this support isn't enabled by default, after all when you open a document the last thing you'll want to do is save it somewhere else, as that's what "Save As" is for. To me it is a completely illogical step for a user to have to take, and I can imagine there being many ".pages" documents inadvertently being passed around by unsuspecting iWork users. Although maybe this is Apple's way of promoting the software, with the hope that people who receive these "weird" files will end up paying for software that they don't necessarily need?

I hope that this post has covered everything, and that it is easy enough to understand. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I'll try my best to help you out.

Update (6/2/09):�Inserted link to the pre-built Info.plist, which I forget to add. Oops.

iWork '09

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:15:03 GMT

One of the "exciting" new releases at MWSF this year, iWork (aptly named) '09. Seemingly a bog standard progression of the standard iWork line. Since I'm relatively new to OS X I've never really had chance to use it before, so with a new release now seems the ideal time to give it a go.

Also, worth mentioning, is that it has had quite a lot of publicity recently regarding a certain iWork '09 plist file. But that's a story that Google will tell you, so no need for me to repeat what has already been said.

I'm currently playing around with them at the moment, having no past experience mean's they take a bit of getting used to, but so far I'm liking Keynote & Numbers, but favour Microsoft Word over Pages - simply not a fan of the DTP aspects of Pages' interface. Anyone else had chance to play around? What do you think, and how do you reckon they compare to past versions?

WordPress App

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:28:52 GMT

"Don't judge a book by it's cover" comes to mind when using this app, although in a negative sense. To begin with I thought it was great, all the features I would really need in a nice simple package. This was on a fresh WordPress install, so I thought if anything was every going to go wrong, then it was least likely to happen here as there were no plugins to get in the way.

First Impressions

As I have said above, to begin with I had high hopes for this App, it seemed well polished like the usual WordPress admin panel. Adding my blog was easy; simply enter URL, username, and password. It is after this part when confusioon occurs.

Opening up the App you get a nice, simple interface with 2 options: "Set up your blog" and About, clicking on setup you enter blog details and how many recent posts you wish to display, if you've managed that part correctly it will be taken back to the main screen where your blog is now listed. So far so good.

Clicking on the blog brings up an interface similar to Mail.app, listing all of your previous post's and a Local Drafts folder, which you can use for offline drafts. Clicking on a post let's you edit it, upload Photo's, Preview it and change Post Settings. Although for me the Preview page has often frozen, sometimes just quitting the app and returning back to the home screen, and other times showing the post under a default template as if it cannot connect to the internet.

Posting a new entry is pretty similar, press the "Write" button and enter all the text. Under one condition, it doesn't crash and send you back to the home page. Once you get to the interface it is pretty much self-explanatory, letting you enter a Title, Tags, Categories, the entry itself and set it's status. There are also the same additional tabs as the edit interface. Once you've done here click Save to then, well, save the post. Assuming this works and you aren't thrown back into the Home Screen you're all done.

Annoyances

Where do I start. Firstly I have found that the Categories are cached, sounds great, but I couldn't get the cache to update. Since first setting up I had created lot's of categories through the web panel, and no matter what I did I couldn't get these to show up. Also there's it's love of the Home Screen, can't go anywhere/do anything without it. And finally no way to edit settings once they have been entered (as far as I can tell). It seems like once a blog has been added, it can't be deleted, and neither can any settings which go along with it.

So really I like the concept of it, although think it's pretty badly implemented. For now it's deleted from my iPod, and I'll definately consider installing again in the future.

Twitter Tools

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:34:08 GMT

Just testing Twitter Tools to check that it's all working correctly :).

Update: It worked!

Server Setup (plus Time Machine)

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:23:15 GMT

So, I've decided that I've got to a point where I need a central place to store everything (i.e. backups). Previously when I had my Server[ything] it was more for fun and getting to grips with Linux. But since then I've discovered Virtual Machines, a much greener albeit slower approach to things. This kind-of rendered a server useless to me, as it got to a stage where I permanently required 2 computers switched on even for the simplest of tasks, as my files were sprawled about all over the place.

A logical choice for this to me seemed to be to go with what I was used to, Ubuntu box with all the additional software which I needed installed via apt-get, this is something which I've got experience in doing and I know it works effectively. But, since there are now Mac's involved I also thought Time Machine integration would be a nice touch, after a bit of googling around I found this tutorial. It all seemed simple enough to understand so I decided to go for it and hope for the best.

A couple of hours later I'd got it all setup, along with a DHCP server running on the Ubuntu box which makes everything run just a tad more smoothly, so, time for the first backup. Initially I couldn't get past the "Preparing Backup" stage, it seemed that I have got too much crap on my laptop, so I thought I'd kick-start the process by excluding the "Users" folder, bringing the backup size to a more manageable 27 GB. This all worked fine after a lot of fiddling, but basically the connection kept getting interrupted for some reason, and it took forever to do the initial backup, at this point I removed the exclusion folder for the Users fold and left Time Machine to do its stuff. Though not for long, I kept getting network problems, so came to the conclusion that this simply wasn't working.

Time to rethink?

By then I was getting somewhat annoyed, what seemed like a simple process simply wasn't working, and why could the backup's simply be created on any file sharing protocol which OS X supports? After all the data is stored within a ".sparsebundle" file, therefore there won't be loss of meta data regardless of these variables (I am pretty sure about this, not 100% though).

I came to the conclusion that the best solution would be to add something there which natively supported the AFP protocol, since a new Apple computer was out of the question it seemed the next best thing would be a logical choice, I knew that the machine I had to install "Leopard" on had driver support which left much to be desired, although my conclusion was that so long as I could get the ethernet port running I was good to go. Installed this without a glitch, ticked all the right boxes and within an hour a "brand new" mac. Setting up the Time Machine drive so that It was shared over AFP was no problem, and my MacBook picked it up straight away, then after selecting through Time Machine prefpane I set it going and got a backup done over a speedy gigabit connection, so far so good, but then I started getting the same problems - every so often the connection would appear to just cut off, not allowing me to login over AFP or, well, do anything really. Since this has happened twice on the same computer I am beginning to think that maybe the problem is related to the physical port, as otherwise I'm out of ideas.

And now ...

That is where I'm stuck for options; I can either use Time Machine with a standard external drive, and simple connect it up to different computers, continue trying to get to the root cause of the problem with my Server, or spend money on new hardware (Time Capsule/Mac Mini).

It's a blog!

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:26:33 GMT

So, here I am. Not used WordPress for a long time, and thought I'd give this thing a go (again). Stuff certainly has changed, WordPress admin panel has totally been overhauled, and I�m writing this from the iPod Touch app. So much for web app�s taking over!?

Maybe I'll write in this again some time soon, on the other hand it may just end up being left here, forgotten, like many other things I start.

iPod, after a few weeks

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:19:22 GMT

The novelty of the touch screen is beginning to wear off, and now I'm beginning to notice some things with it (not faults, just little annoyances).

First, the calendar issue, I've stopped using GCal, and started using outlook. Yes, it is great that it syncs, but, I want to be able to add/edit the calendar from within my iPod, which apparently is coming soon. Also I'd quite like an email client, maybe the iPhones one, as now I understand what IMAP is, it's quite useful for getting everything working together. Another thing, a notes application, just for writing notes & stuff, as I am getting quite good at using the on-screen keyboard. No doubt all of these things will be fixed though, maybe sometime around February 2008?

IMAP

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:27:00 GMT

IMAP is something which I never really knew about, for some reason I just assumed that it was some old technology, and that POP had taken it's place. Probably due to the fact that Gmail offered POP + SMTP, as did most other email providers that i've used in the past.

I never did like using POP to access my email, so for the last year or so i've solely been using webmail, as I'd download all my email into some application, it'd take forever, everything would be"unread" and then for some reason or another I had to reinstall the OS, same process again, it was just missing out the synchronization. Then google announce IMAP was being released for gmail. At first I ignored it, since I didn't really know what it did, but then I read more about it and it seemed perfect, I could use Thunderbird/Outlook for email, and it wouldn't keep me out of sync with whats read & whats not. So yesterday I setup Outlook 2007 to use it, and it worked. Perfectly. All mail was read, excepty for a couple new ones, I read them and that was updated at gmail. Excellent! My only problem now is that I don't know how to use outlook, and manage to keep sending messages twice.

Where can I buy a dock?

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:54:59 GMT

Yes, I know they are overpricced pieces of plastics, but after using one with my iPod mini for the past few years, I got rather used to it, and it was a convenient place to place my iPod. So now I'm after one for my new iPod. Trouble is they don't seem to be in stock anywhere, except the Apple Store. And I don't really want to pay �4.50 p&p on top of the �35 price for it. They're out of stock at play.com, eBuyer doesn't have them, can't find the new version on amazon, and dabs doesn't have them either.

Same problem with all the following: Argos, Comet and Currys.

So I'm out of ideas. Maybe I'll just have to wait, and what annoys me is the ridiculous prices of accesories. �269 for iPod I think is reasonable, �19 for 6 socks, definately not, �35 for dock & remote. Not at all. But, people must be buying them, it seems an unnecessary premium for stuff that must cost nothing to make. Although controlling iPod by remote will be good :D

Also it seems like a Friday today for some reason, must be because I am attempting to do homework, but it has taken me (so far) a few hours to do just a relatively simple piece of physics. Must concentrate harder.

Super Cheap PC

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:07:01 GMT

I was bored, and decided to see how much I could get a brand new computer for. Nothing fancy at all, just something that works & the cheapest possible. What I came up with:

Maxtor 40GB SATAII Hard Drive. (�18.79)
MSI Socket 775 Motherboard (onboard graphics etc.). (�30.85)
Intel Celeron 420 Processor (1.6Ghz of pure power ;)). (�23.50)
512Mb of DDRII Ram (eBuyer Extra Value, of course). (�9.99)
LiteOn DVD-Rom (How often do you burn CD's anyway). (�9.71)
Casecom 6630 case (Cheapest on there). (�7.99)
Casecom 300w PSU (Again, the cheapest). (�5.99)
eBuyer Extra Value 80mm case fan. (�0.99)

That brings the subtotal to just �107.81, not bad for anyone who wants a relatively low specced PC. Throw Linux on there, and you'll have a perfectly capable word processor/web browser, or even server (to an extent) for that matter. If it wasn't for the fact that I really didn't need, or want it, maybe I'd buy it. But, since I have no use for it it'd be a tad pointless.

Windows Home Server

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:54:57 GMT

I'd actually forgotten about this, a while back I signed up to the BETA testing for it, downloaded, and realised it needed a relatively high spec PC to run on, which I didn't have going spare at the time, and I was just on the eBuyer website, and found it had been released.

It does seem an excellent idea, as it sounds as though it "just works",� I could do with something like that, as I never get round to backing up my PC, as it requires me to think about it. Plus vista's built in backup doesn't like to recognise my server running samba. hmm. But, it's over �100, �100 for that.

So, let's say hypothetically I bought it, thats �100 for the os. Then i'll need a new computer to run it on, along with plenty of storage, thats around another �200 (give or take a bit). Bye-bye �300 for a bit of convenience, oh, and that still won't be backing up my linux server. That's kind-of an expensive inconvenience.

I�ve got my iPod!

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:05:01 GMT

It's just amazing, the speed of it is loads quicker than iTunes can ever be on my computer, just absolutely amazing!

Safari is great, surprisingly browsing the web on a small screen doesn't seem a problem, as it is easy to zoom in and travel around.

Youtube - excellent, even youtube results found on google open up in it. It's a nice, easy to use interface. Admittedly it is a bit of a shame that you can't log in to see favourites etc.

iTunes Store - excellent! i've not actuall purchased anything from there, but even just listening to stuff works brilliantly, and is instant.

Calculator - It works, good enough for me!

Video player - works very good, no delays or anything when opening & fast forwarding videos.

Music - Cover flow is very nice, and a good way to randomly choose what you want to listen to! Also the various sorting options are great.

Pictures - Fun to play around with, dragging stuff about & zoooming in.

Things I wish it had:

Notes of some sort, it would be nice to be able to just write stuff on it, after all my old ipod had the ability to read text files!
Add to the calendar - how hard can it be?
Mail - again, how hard can it be?
Flash support - I can view PDF's, so why not flash files?
Support for 3rd party apps - why not? Would open it up for loads more functionality

That's all, back to playing :D

Update: Some More Things

Syncing of Podcasts over WiFi - would be great when away from computer for a longish period of time
Films/TV Shows from iTMS - although I suppose youtube pretty much has this area covered.

iPod�s nearly here!

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:11:22 GMT

It's finally getting here, after almost 4 weeks of waiting! Last time I checked it was in "Liege Euro Hub", somewhere in Belgium. Expected to be delivered tomorrow, so that'll give me something to do tomorrow night I've just been sorting out all my music in iTunes, some was at an unnecessarily high bit-rate, so everything now is at 192kbps (that was higher than that before).

Only problem is that Apple don't seem to have released much for it yet. I was wanting to buy a decent case, although the only thing on the apple store are the socks (do look rather nice though), and I don't want to buy a 99p silicone case and wait for it to come from Hong Kong. Maybe protective wrapping will be a viable option for the time being :P

Ubuntu has impressed me.

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:03:05 GMT

Today is the day I switched over the roles of my computers, I was expecting it to be a relatively easy process of swap hard drives, instull Ubuntu Server, install software. Nothing difficult, done it many times before. But I have been very impressed, I simply needed to complete step one, and everything worked. I was at least expected to have to reconfigure fstab, since one of the hard drives is on a PCI SATA controller, so I expected it to mess up a bit. Or maybe for the network to go a bit funny, since it was a different motherboard, but no. So far everything has worked perfectly, even the network folders which I left open on my computer have just reconnected themselves.

Now I'm installing Ubuntu desktop on my other computer, I chose to go 64 bit. As I said before there's something about ubuntu which makes me want to use it, and since it will be on a dedicated machine, with (fingers crossed) wobbly windows, and a proper connection to a monitor, through my new KVM switch, I'm hoping that it will be a very pleasant experience.

This brings me onto the KVM, a Belkin model, available from ebuyer for around �19. It is absolutely brilliant, switching between computers is almost instant with the button on top (haven't bothered with the windows software) and the only fault about it is the really long cables, although better being too long than too short. So if anyone's wanting an easy way to control 2 computers. Buy it! Absolutely worth it.

I�m going to try Ubuntu (Again)

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:49:55 GMT

There seems to be something about this OS which makes me want to use it ... but not permanently, I've tried dual booting, but it just doesn't last, so I've decided to do a bit of re-shuffling of my computers.

What is currently my server will become my ubuntu box, to be honest it's far too over-specced to do what it's doing currently (basically a development system for me). It will be replaced with an oldish AMD Athlon box with I've recently acquired, with the following specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8 Ghz)
256 Mb DDR Ram
An old 8 gb hard drive for OS (same as current)
250 gb hard drive for storage, on a new SATA controller card.
Old dedicated nVidia graphics

So that should be just enough to run ubuntu server quite nicely, then I'll be using Ubuntu desktop (not sure weather to go 64-bit or not) on what is currently my server, with these specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1.25 Gb DDR Ram
80 gb IDE hard drive
256 mb nVidia Geforce 6000 something graphics (hoping for wobbly windows)

I've also ordered a Belkin KVM switch, which will arrive tomorrow, so that'll make the experience much nicer than using just VNC. Maybe this will be one final thing to convert me over, as pretty much all that I'm using my computer for nowadays is word processing, and web dev, so not really much "windows" is required. Although, I need VB for college, and don't fancy learning something totally new on linux, that I probably won't be able to work on there. So loosing windows seems to be a no-go for now.

I want a Mac

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:11:36 GMT

Yep, I want a Mac. Although I'm not going to cry like a baby until I get one. But my computer has really been doing my head in recently, for example:

I've been trying to convert a few videos to an iPod compatible format, I wrongly assumed that this would be simple. The files are in MPEG-2 format, and I want them in mp4 (I think that's it), but no matter what software I use it just won't happen. "SUPER" video converter just doesn't like vista. VLC creates the file, but nothing will read it. iTunes, no chance. It seems something which I thought would literally be a task of opening file, choosing format, clicking convert, seems to be impossible. Now, it may not be easy on a Mac, but it can't be this difficult can it?
iTunes. One of the best pieces of software, but yet again it doesn't seem to like Vista, scrolling is like you would expect from an old PC with integrated graphics, and it is generally laggy.

Plus there are other reasons, so I've decided that I'm buying an Apple PC. It'll be between a Mac Mini (would make be nice with a big TV screen ... need the TV), or a MacBook (would be nice for general portability).

Also my new iPod Touch hasn't been shipped yet, which it shouldn't have been, but I'm getting a tad impatient!

Update: I've found something which works for ripping DVD's, Magic DVD Ripper. Has an iPod mode, just need to change the resolution for iPod Touch. Excellent.

Orange Broadband

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 14:58:13 GMT

It seem's like they have been getting quite a bit of bad press recently, but I've personally never had any problems with them, since signing up in 2004. But I've never actually had to ring up their customer support, until today, they have an offer for a free laptop, on a package which is cheaper & just as good as my current one, so I was expecting they would let me simply cancel my account, and sign up again.

But no, that is too simple, I rang up this morning to ask if it would be possible, and was told yes, I would just have to call customer services to get my account cancelled.

So, I rang up customer services, and was told NO, it would take around 40 days for the whole cancellation process to complete. Say goodbye.

Ring up again (get an english bloke, must say he was very helpful). This time it was only going to take 10 days, but I would be without internet for around 7, which i can live with, just. I said fine, and he put me through to the cancellations department, and told, again, that this would take 40 days.

Now, I think I'm quite a patient person, but by now I was getting a tad annoyed, so I just asked for a MAC code to� switch providers, this would only take 5 days, so basically if they think you'll be back, they'll take all the time in the world, but once you're going for good they can't wait to see the back of you. But getting the MAC code wasn't a simple process, I had a wonderful salesman on the other end of the phone, after a few periods of holding. I already knew what package I wanted, Sky Broadband's MID, at less than 1/3 of the price, and 20x more bandwidth, a pretty good deal. Of course if you're a salesman you ignore maths, and offer a package @ £12.99 with the features of my current one, after getting through the the poor guy that I wasn't interested, he finally offered me unlimited bandwidth, which to be honest isn't that great, as it will have a stupid FUP, and I could get unlimited for £10 from sky. The I was offered a wonderful livebox, no thanks. Eventually he understands that I ain budging on this, and requests a MAC code for me, which will hopefully be arriving in a few days.

Now, if they didn't have a customer service department, then their service would be great, but unfortunately they do, so now I've got to wait until I can finally get rid of them.

Or, I have a plan, I'm willing to put up with the 2 gig bandwidth, as it hasn't affected me before. I was told that I couldn't use a MAC code to switch package because it wouldn't work, by the same person who wanted me to spend �12.99 rather than �5, so no doubt in a few days i'll be making an unfortunate trip to PC world to try and get that laptop, and maybe tell them I changed my mind, I'm sure they'd accept a valued customer, like me, back. We'll soon find out. ;-)

*In the cases where I've said My account, actually translated it means my dad's, but he doesn't know any different.

Dreamhost Tip: Wordpress & the �stats� folder

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:08:22 GMT

Warning: May cause unexpected results with feedburner

Something I just noticed is that if you have a wordpress blog hosted at the root of a domain, you cannot access the /stats folder, since the mod_rewrite code in wordpress over-rides it, and tries to acccess one of it's own pages. So I've just gone a little googling and found that if you add the line:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-U

To the .htaccess file it will allow you to access the stats report, and still keep WordPress happy.

Seems like the Apache Manual is actually useful - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritecond - scroll down a bit.

But since I know, well, next to nothing about mod_rewrite this may not be the best/most efficient way of doing it, so if it could cause any problems, or if there is a better way please let me know!

My ISP Mustn�t be very happy

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:46:50 GMT

I've just done a (very) rough calculation of how much bandwidth I've used in the last 3 days, both up & down it came to 4.38971772 gigabytes exactly. And that's just in the last 3 days, I have a supposed cap of 2 Gb per month from Orange. Which I don't really think is fair, my parent's are paying �18 a month for it, under their old price structure. The speed is a constant 3 Meg (it does actually act that quick aswell). How I've never been kicked off before is a wonder, since in the past I've downloaded 4 gig+ ISO's, thats my bandwidth out in one sweep. Maybe orange are just being kind?

My Idea for a Mac

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:43:32 GMT

An Apple PC is something I'd really like to get, it's just the prices putting me off, �399 for the most basic Mac Mini. Which is great and small, but I don't necessarily want all that smallness, since it means having to upgrade the RAM (And avoid Apple's ridiculous prices on it) would require me fiddling in places not necessarily meant to be fiddeled in.

The Mac Pro on the other hand, is a large machine, very powerful, and expensive. But most importantly big & upgradeable, like a PC.

Which brings me to my point. Why not make a low-end Mac Pro, identical specs to the Mac Mini, but a lot cheaper. To me this makes sense, as surely production cost's would be lowered since Apple wouldn't be so limited to space, and the end user would be at an advantage as they would have a nice upgradeable machine.

I've just looked at the parts required for a system with similar specs to the Mac Mini and the total price comes to about £230 without a case, bearing in mind thats just me looking at eBuyer, not taking into account the discounts apple are bound to get through volume purchasing. Admittedly that doesn't look at the exact hardware they would use, but it must be an approximation.

If they released something like this, I would definately be considering buying it, since it still offers the upgradeability, without spending too much money.

iTunes Update

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:40:25 GMT

I'm probably a bit behind with this, but since I'd got vista iTunes hadn't been as quick, or as nice, with random black areas whenever it was opened. But I'd lived with it, since I don't open it that often.

About a week or so it said there was a new version, so I downloaded & left it, finally got round to installing it today. It is sooo much quicker, and doesn't suffer any of the problems the older version had, and it doesn't lag either.

Also it has vista style open/close/minimise icons, which is a nice touch.

Excellent :)

New Speaker�s

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:12:08 GMT

I've just ordered some new speakers.

Hopefully these will be a great improvement over my current 2.1 system, that doesn't like to be switched on.

The only problem is that I am going to now have even more cables, but the surround-soundness of it should be worth it!

They'll be coming by wednesday hopefully, so I'll judge them then, although they do seem to be rated quite well around the web.

PHP & Me

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:48:34 GMT

I was just looking through some old old old PHP code, I knew I never was the greatest coder, but I was pretty darn bad a couple of years ago.

My idea of security was just a random string of numbers, here's a sample:


$id=$_GET['id'];
?>
IF ($id == "98493859") {
?>

The page would be displayed after that, nice and secure I see. Oh, and validation was an absolute no-no, I mean no hacker is every going to get into this are they?

Thankfully I've improved a bit since then, (I hope anyway).

It's also weird to see what I've learnt recently, I'm still far from being an expert, but I think I know what I know quite well, I was updating a lot of the code on stuffatschool.com recently, the original had been published a few months ago, and to be quite honest, it was a security risk & then some, I'd left it displaying mysql error's everywhere, not bothered with SQL injection, thankfully nothing every happened, and the new version is (I hope) much more secure. In fact in just the month or so I'd say I've made the most progress in terms of the learning curve, I'd say now I am more sensible & secure in what I do.

Anyone else ever done this? Looked back at something to realise how shoddy it was!

UAC: Off

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:45:02 GMT

Now, UAC may have been a great idea, I mean, it protect's you like "root" does in unix. But root doesn't follow your every move, watching over you like Mr. Blair, does it?

Fair enough, it is good in some cases, you may accidentaly run a virus for example, or click "destroy me now", but I have to say, I have only ever done that once. Purely out of curiosity.

But, it get's annoying when everytime I insert the DVD for NFS: MW it asks me if i want to run it, then I click play, asks me again, now, anyone with half a brain can remember it, and surely at least give an option to save the preferences. But no, in true MS/caveman style "We MS - You idiotic user".

So, I may be opening myself to a gazillion security holes, but, who cares, although if I do suddenly dissapear, blame UAC ;)

Visual Basic 2005

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:56:37 GMT

Something I've been wanting to do for a while is learn a programming language, other then PHP (if that's classed as one). I'd tried Java, yes it has cross-platformability, but it is too complex for my mind, I wanted something that was relatively easy, and that's how I ended up at visual basic. A while ago I'd tried VB6, don't know why since I had a copy of 2005 Express, and now I have started using 2005. There are a few differences between the 2, but to be honest I didn't really learn anything from VB6 so it wasn't much of a schock anyway.

In terms of ease of use it is great, the UI designer work's very well, and let's you see exactly what the final thing will look like (ok, you don't get Aero, but it's no big thing). And the actual programming behing it is aided by the tips that come up as you are typing, so you can start off with a knowledge of pretty much nothing!

I have created a couple of App's with it, both the standard thing's just for a learning curve, although am currently working on a client for StuffAtSchool.com, but more on that another time!

Although something I don't like about it, and probably will never be changed, is the fact that it only works with Windows, which in the narrow view is fine, since most people use windows anyway, but, it is still annoying that an application the has been developed, can't be directly exported for other OS's, Linux in particular.

So In conclusion if you are looking to start programming, and don't mind going windows-only I'd reccomend Visual Basic, best of all it is available as a free download from Microsoft (A little oxymoron in there) from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/default.aspx.

MicroZip

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:50:57 GMT

I have to say, I would expect even Microsoft to be able to handle Zip archives well within windows, yes it has the support for them, but it is ridiculous how bad it is, I downloaded something the earlier, in a zip archive, copied and pasted it out, was moving the files at 98 bytes/second. Even Dial-Up's quicker than that. I would much rather they just got rid of it completely, rather than having the pathetic excuse for it that is currently there.

Just a bit of a rant from me

New Theme!

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:28:01 GMT

I've been working on this for a couple of day's, It's my first ever wordpress theme and I'm pretty pleased with it, uploaded it a few second's ago, got some feedback about it from Adam, and thats where I am now.

I was going to use the twitter API, but it wasn't loading and I was getting impatient, so I just left it as it was!

Any more feedback appreciated,

Lee :)

Has Google taken over?

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:36:35 GMT

Something I've just noticed is that when I open FF I automatically open a load of tabs, all seem to be google (scarry):

Is this part of a weird plan from google to take over us all, or is it just me who uses solely google?

It just seems odd how one company can operate many succesful websites, it's actually quite freaky in fact that i automatically go to google, is this some kind of master plan for google to control us all (or me at least)

Mwuhahahaha

Monitor Broke

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:04:19 GMT

Well, it's kind-of broke, although it's not really broke at all, just developed an annoying fault. It looks like an image has burnt into it, although it is very faint and, and looks like the top part of Firefox.

The thing is though, I haven't a clue how this has happened.

I always thought that for an image to burn in it had to be left on the screen for hours, although my monitor's are set to switch off after 5 minutes.

So it doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all, and it is one of those things that I wish I had never noticed, as my eyes keep getting drawn to the spot where it is.

But, what top's it off is that I have 2 monitor's, both identical, and the one that should go wrong would have to be the older one outside just of it's warranty period. Although maybe Acer wouldn't notice if I said it was the newer one. Hmm, Maybe that's worth a try ;) (I never said that though!)

Tab�s have their annoyances

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:14:44 GMT

They're still great, but can be annoying. By the end of the day I always end up with far too many of them open, a minute ago I did have about 20 open in one window, and FF was using 280Mb of ram, it's worth it, but slows down my PC like mad.

Is there actually a name for having far too many tab's? I mean, it can't be good (for you or the computer), half the time I look back at them and wonder where the hell it came from.

Ah well, FF tabs still beat IE tab's :P

Even if they are hungrier.

My Server[ything] Is working AGAIN!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:27:49 GMT

Turned out it was an easy fix, and i'm kinda proud for doing it without even using google, just overwriting xorg.conf with xorg.conf.backup

Yay :D

My Server[ything] Isn�t working & It�s Snowing!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:00:12 GMT

I new I shouldn't mess with something that is doing the job well, but I just couldn't resist, thinking what harm can it do. Last night I was trying to get beryl+emerald to work, obviously not a good idea for someone whois a total linux noob, I was installing all kinds of packages from synaptic, expecting it to just not do anything. How wrong was I.

I've just booted it up today, since I have a day of school because of the snow :D to find a message:

The X server(graphical interface) could not be started, would you like to diagnose this problem? So I chose yes,� but nothing.

Not a good start!

Luckily I'm able to login, and that starts up samba so I can backup everything I want.

Not exactly a great start to the day, as it looks like I'm going to have to spend an hour or so re-installing ubuntu.

Bloody Brilliant

But at least it's snowing, so I get the day off :D And I'm hoping it will continue until tomorrow!

Floppy Discs: Designed to be annoying?

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:20:59 GMT

I was watching my computer boot up earlier, and noticed the speed ratings were totally out. It was saying my processor was 2 cores running at 462Mhz, rather than 1.86Ghz each. Now, this seems a bit too much out for a little error. So, the obvious option seemed to be update the BIOS. I went to the Asus website, and had 2 options, create a DOS boot floppy and install from there, or use their software from within windows.

Now, the last time I used their software it froze my pc, and corrupted the BIOS, luckily it just auto-restored it when I rebooted. So I chose the floppy option. What A Mistake.

Firstly, I don't have a floppy drive in my PC, so, off to the cupboard and under a pill of crap I find one, plug it in, start up, anf the light just won't go off, and I can't access it. After a couple of reboots I finally gave up. Back to the cupboard, another floppy, this time it worked. So, hanging out of the side of my computer, stacked upon 100 CD-r's I was able to format it as a boot disk, then copy over the files.

Nice and simple, or so it sounds. Shutdown, Reboot, but Nooo Won't load up any of the files. Stubborn thing. By now I'd spent about 1/2 an hour messing around with floppy discs and had had no success. So, I find a live XP CD (Not sure where it came from, it's just there). So I booted into that, which took bloody ages, formated it, and then copied over the files. Et Voila. Kindof.

Same process again, reboot, open the flashing software, load the bios file, FREEZE. For crying out loud, one simple thing, and a computer cannot handle it. Alls I ask from it is that it boots from a floppy disc, updates the bios, and done, job's a good 'un.

By now I was getting rather annoyed, but, was wanting to sort this problem, so refused to give up. I was looking around for other floppy discs and found one in the motherboard box labelled "Asus Updated BIOS". Thinking it couldn't get any worse, I gave this a try, finally, the darn thing worked. No, it isn't the most up to date bios, but it works, and that counts for something.

Anyway, I think this is enough ranting for one night :)

On a unrelated note though, aren't computers cheap! I was looking around on ebuyer earlier, just messing, as you do :P And wondered how much you could get a computer for, the total, justunder £140 (this is with a 250Gb HDD though, so it could be less). No, it isn't the best spec in the world, but it would make a good file/development server, with ubuntu on it. For anyone interested here are the parts:

MSI Motherboard
Intel Celeron D Processor (2.66Ghz)
256Mb DDR Ram
250 Gb Hard Drive
DVD Drive
And finally, something to put it all in (optional of course, you are free to stack everything up in a corner, just don't let any pets near it :P )

Now, it is possible to make it cheaper, but be reasonable,have you ever tried to run ubuntu with 128 meg of ram, I have, through MS Virtual PC, trust me, you need lots of patience (and I'm talking about pre-install)

Anyway, I think i've written far to much random irrelated stuff for now.

My Server[ything] Is working

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:50:11 GMT

Running linux, and 100% windows free :)

I posted before about getting ubuntu working, But now I've got a new hard drive for it, and alls going well. It serves files to all computers on the network, a hell of a lot quicker than my PC connected over wireless, runs MySQL with no problems, and just works excellently!

Although for something just to server up files I think it's a bit over-specced, although this is the only hardware I have not in use:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1.25 Gb of Ram
GigaByte Motherboard (not sure which, but it's pretty good)
nVidia GeForce 256mb 6-something PCI-e graphics card (being wasted in this computer, monitor is off all the time, and when I do use it it's through VNC)
1x 8 GB hard drive, for OS and software
250Gb SATAII Drive for files

Initially I had a bit of trouble getting it to mount, but then I found the "Enable" button in System>Administration>Disks. The I just needed to configure apache to serve files fomr the drive, and setup samba to do the same. All was working well in under an hour. And it's had no random hiccups so far.

Admittedly this probably isn't the most energy-efficient device in the world, but it's convenient and not on 24/7.

In fact, the only annoyance so far was my dad waking me up this morning at about 6:30am (my eyes were too blurry to see the time) to ask me how to switch it off, at least he didn't think i'd destroyed the world because it wasn't windows. He managed to turn it off by using the unstructions "Click the thing that looks like a door, then shut down". And I was then able to go back to sleep. Yay :)

Vista speech recognition hole

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:43:35 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm

Not sure why, but I think this is a pretty funny way of attacking someones computer. I can just imagine hearing voices in the background, whilst my computer is self detructing :P

I�ve actually managed to make something work with Linux

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:12:24 GMT

Without making it die upon restarting :O

Today I went back to fiddling trying to get a Ubuntu set up as a file/web server. Last time I tried I failed with both samba and apache, I managed to compile apache from source, but couldn't get it to work. So after a small amount of googling I found possibly the best help websites, http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper. It has everything stored on one place where it is easy to find, I started off with samba. No problem, then apache & php, yet again, no problem, I didn't even have to open httpd.conf. Now I have a fully functioning LAMP + S (Samba) server.

I'm quite proud of myself for just under an hours worth of work, as now everything is setup and I know what I'm doing when my new hard drive comes on wednesday.