Well, I have to say, I’m very impressed with the new GNER Mallard service. Not only has it cost only 19 quid each way (or 180 for return tickets, yeah, go figure…), it also has reliable and pretty quick internet access onboard through the use of APs in the coaches, GSM network connections and satellite connections. Amazingly, it works really well. Much better than my home satellite connection. You can also see the exact location of the train, presumeably through some GPS device. Checkout the screenshot here. Onwards to the expo! Really looking forward to the talks by Klaus Knopper and Alan Cox, not looking forward to my lpi exam.. 
Archive for the 'Misc' Category
Scary. Very accurate.
I hate revising. Really, really, hate it. I’m not an academic. I’ve realised this morning that I can sleep in an extra hour just from the knowledge that when I do finally get up, I’ll have to start revising for my LPI exams at this years Linux World Expo in London, UK.
Fingers crossed and back to the books.. Anyone else sitting the exam(s)?
Have a look at this screenshot from Windows Vista running in Glass 3D mode:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/1891-pivot.jpg
Now compare it with Project Looking Glass from sun:
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.xml
Hmm!
Pictures from this years event here: http://omahns-home.bishopb-college.ac.uk/gallery/goodwood2005
I’m stunned by the poor quality of these pictures. I had them put directly on CD by the shop that developed the two APS films. Never again. Looking at purchasing a Canon PowerShot S60 that comes recommended from our marketing manager.
As mentioned in my previous blog, the hard-disk in Neon died recently. I came into work on Monday cursing SMART for not detecting the impending doom and warning me. With further investigation, it appears that it did warn me. Tucked away inside several daily e-mailed log reports was the following:
--------------------- Smartd Begin ------------------------
/dev/hdb : Prefailure: Seek_Time_Performance (8) changed to 76
Moral of the story. Read your logs.
Past few days have been interesting to say the least.
On Sunday morning, while I was working on the new web-site, the hard-disk in Neon decided to fail. It was making very odd noises. For a long 4 hours, I didn’t think I had any backups, but that’s another story. As it turns out, I did have pretty much full backups of my etc, /var/lib/mysql and /var/www folders. No backup of my home directory though, unfortunately it’s too big to fit on the backup server. Pictures of the hard-disk in question can be seen here. Notice the heads and the scratches on the platters. Completely dead.
Rebuilding the box is turning out to be a challenge. Installing Debian Stable (Sarge) was a doddle and suprisingly quick considering it has only just hit the mirrors. Recompiling the kernel though has proved troublesome. This is something I usually do with my eyes closed, but in this case i’m pretty stuck. I’ve rebuilt the filesystem with LVM2 and I just cannot get a fresh kernel to boot. I’ve included the IDE controller and DM support, yet it still doesn’t find the filesystem.. hmm..
As most of you are aware, I run Linux. On my work machine, my laptop and all my home machines. I don’t have a copy of any Microsoft software at home. Period.
I’m willing to put up with the odd missing feature here and their in the full knowledge that someone will be working to scratch the itch. In this case, that someone, is the manufacturer of the device. HP.
I’ve had a HP all-in-one LaserJet in the Office for a good 2 years now, but i’ve never attempted to scan from it. Last time I tried to setup scanning under Linux was a horrible experience. It involved recompiling the kernel, patching the kernel and installing all sorts of wierd libraries. (For the record, it did work in the end.) But that was many years ago. To the present..
apt-get install hpoj
…enter the IP address…
..and i’m scanning. In under 30 seconds. Wow. Well done HP. If only more manufacturers were supporting Linux this much. I’ve also just this minute noticed that the expensive paper weight at the other side of the office (Colour Laserjet 3500) now has drivers too. HP has just found itself a life time customer.
I have proof that sitting in #lugradio all day is actually useful! All the current content for our website is sitting in a database, complete with HTML markup. Obviously the markup shouldn’t be their so i’ve been trying to find an easy way of stripping it all out. At first I tried html2text, this failed dysmally as it was expecting a correctly formatted HTML file as input. My input is a dump of SQL with all the HTML markup contained in a field of each record causing html2text to fail. Then up comes Elleo in #lugradio with the solution:
sed 's/< [a-zA-Z0-9\/"# =]*>//g’ input.txt > output.txt
This worked perfectly and I now have our site content in plain text. Fantastic. If I manage to get over to LRL i’ll certainly be pushing a pint in the direction of Elleo.
