Nicholas Booth Dot Com

• Doing weird things with Movable Type imports. Might be very successful. #
• Early start today at 7:45. Canteen breakfast at desk. Multiple perl and wget site scrapes. Hope editor decides how many pages he really has. #
• This Movable Type import work really feels like voodo magic. It may even work! #
• Hooray: Site now running on Movable Type. Only slightly frayed (the site, that is). Me: happy. http://tinyurl.com/c5lo5q #
• more regex magic for microscope. #
• Finally upgrd firmware for my Grandstream BT200 VOIP phone by getting intermediate versions. GS Support didn't know it had to be this way. #
• It must have been the rasberry jam on my toast this morning that's put me in such a good mood today. Even my PDP work was almost fun! #
• School office messed up passing music bag to Grace so she missed piano lesson. Grrrr. #
• Home brewed beer still in good condition, if a little cooler than I'd prefer as it lives in the shed. It's jolly cold out there. #
• Client happy with new web site livery. Joy. What a way to spend a Saturday! #
• It is about 40 years since I was last here in Bentalls and it has changed a bit #
• Heinz Tomato soup, a swirl of fresh cream and some home made croutons = peace and calm. #

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Shed in the snow

I’m just drinking a very pleasant, if somewhat cool, glass of home made beer.  When we decided to do up the garden this year, one objective was to start brewing beer in the shed – something I’ve not dine for about fifteen years or so.  Once the shed was in place, out came the fermenting bucket and barrel, and the result is a pressure barrel (courtesy of some gaffer tape to keep the safety valve shut!!)  of beer for me to sip when I like.  Forty pints will last a while  – I seem only to manage a pint or so a week at most.

Nice day at work today – plenty accomplished, and although I had to refuse some business to tune a web site, I was able to make a few useful tweaks to the Apache configuration for performance.  Stats still suggesting Movable Type rendering 500,000 page impressions a day – that’s pretty good.

Finished my performance review at the office this morning as well.  Glad that’s out  of the way.

I also managed to get my BT200 voip phone to ring with a converted bell sound.  Not really very spectacular, but just rather neat to accomplish!

Much hassle trying to upgrade my fairly ancient voip phone which I use in the study connected to the Asterisk PBX.  It seemed to have a very early firmware and boot loader version, which no matter how much I tried would not upgrade to Grandstream’s latest and greatest.  I troubled their support ticket system for advice, and the persistent reply was that it would work in one go without intermediate versions.  Not so.  FAIL to Grandstream, I’m afraid.

After much searching I found a site called GrandstreamSucks.com and there were a series of earlier firmwares.  I downloaded all I could, then set about seeing what could be done with these;  the phone was set to use a local HTTP server for the firmware upgrades, and by this means I could follow the Apache log and see the evidence of the files being sucked up.

From the very early software versions (on my phone it was 1.1.0.5 software / 1.1.0.88 bootloader) you do seem to have to upgrade in stages.  From GrandstreamSucks  I used firmware 1.1.2.25 which upgraded just fine.  I then chose 1.1.4.14 which also upgraded fine. THEN I used the 1.2.2.26 from the real Grandstream site, and that seems to have worked fine as well.

Now all that’s left is to test it all out properly and check the configuration is still right.

Very random.

Climate change:  the IPCC seems to have shot itself in the foot having predicted a few years ago that all the Himalayan glaciers would be melted in less than thirty years from now.  I really don’t understand how they can have come to such a dramatic conclusion without realising thy must have been so amazingly wrong unless they were simply joining the global warming bandwagon and giving politicians what they wanted to hear in exchange for funds.  It’s bad enough that the Pro GW enthusiasts can’t accept that they might be wrong.  Drives me mad – and somewhat irritated by some journals fanning the flames, it seems to me.  Gah!

— UPDATE, 27/01/2010: The Times has an article on this very subject and which strikes me as a far more balanced attitude to how scientists should think about this subject.—

The office canteen produced Haggis yesterday.  It was great.

Spent much of today looking at the conversion of www.microscope.co.uk to an MT based site.  Hopefully I can sort out the problems this poses me, and discover just hpw many pages there actually are.  Wget is now being run to try and get an  “independent” idea of what’s there.  Editor says 3500 pages, Script from SixApart finds just 980.  Nice bit of feedback from the publisher, though.

We went to Grace’s school this evening to hear about the proposed trip to Little Canada (IOW) when she gets into year six.  Got to find some cash, now!

Waitig for Grandstream to reply to my question about upgrading the BT200 phone firmware.  24 hours so far and no reply yet.  Hopefully they’ll comeup with the goods, because random crash and reboot only with a power cycle is a bit frustrating.

Time for bed.  Early shift for me tomorrow.

Study Desk (Tidy)

A fairly full weekend almost over.  Much time spent tidying the study – and it’s much better for the  work that’s been put into it,  It’s also enabled me to commission an old Apple Imac in some sort of electric blue.  It’s a bit of a beast, somewhat slow, and with a paltry 10Gb hard disk I’m wondering how I’ll get on with it.  Something of a challenge, but it’s rather fun to give it a go.

At the same time I’ve been able to take out a network hub and one of the ATAs for the phone system, so that will save a bit of 24 hour juice.  You probably won’t be able to see the difference in the Pachube data, though.

I have also patched two POTS type extensions into the study from the Grandstream GXW4004 under the stairs – so that’s now utilising all four channels.  Because it supports loop disconnect dialing, it enables me to have my Ivory 332 on the desk with its gorgeous real bell ring.  It’s a nice contrast with the Grandstream BT200 which keeps crashing every three or four calls – so maybe there’s been s dodgy firmware update recently.  Time will tell what happens to that.

Piano practice, and homework, has been patchy this weekend, despite some enthusiasm to win a competition to do the most piano practice this week.  Project work has been minimal – looks like someone’s going to have to learn the hard way that M&D aren’t joking when they predict Homework Club.

I have also patched two POTS type extensions into the study from the Grandstream GXW4004 under the stairs – so that’s now utilising all four channels.  It enables me to have my Ivory 332 on the desk with its gorgeous real bell ring.  It’s a nice contrast with the Grandstream BT200 which keeps crashing every three or four calls – so maybe there’s been s dodgy firmware update recently.  Time will tell what happens to that.

Piano practice, and homework, has been patchy this weekend, despite some enthusiasm to win a competition to do the most piano practice this week.  Project work has been minimal – looks like someone’s going to have to learn the hard way that M&D aren’t joking when they predict Homework Club.

• Might make interesting hack project: http://tinyurl.com/yb9f4br but would need to relocte my workshop. #
• If you look at http://tinyurl.com/yk3p5ae it looks like we've stopped showering. I have to be a plumber at w/end as electric shower broken. #
• Third mystery letter from Berlin arrived this week. More painted canvas type material inside. #
• Researching rocket construction; need 35mm film can and Alka seltza tablets. Maybe Freecycle will come up trumps on the film cans. #
• James May's thoughts on a Defender; good stuff. http://tinyurl.com/y9urfcx I would just love to lay one down for Grace. She'd be happy. #
• What's a bit? http://tinyurl.com/ye6nja5 #
• Successful rocket launch completed with daughter; 35mm film can, cardboard, gaffer tape, water & alka seltza. http://twitpic.com/z3mnw #
• My nephew: Cheeky, but NSFW RT @PeteNottage: Crudely-drawn cocks plus amazing animation equals http://tinyurl.com/yf8y5xg #
• Electric shower replaced. Plumbers need have no fear for their jobs, though. #
• Hooray! Postman has delivered Amazon package with "Practical Arduino" inside. #
• Tidying the study. Found a Christmas present which I should have given to SWMBO a month ago. Anyway, She likes it now! #
• More tidying; one ATA & one network hub eliminated=power saving. Long way to go before currentcost not needed! #

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Three prototype rockets by Grace

Grace came home from school distraught that her teacher had canceled the Rocket practical for tomorrow, and would simply demonstrate one herself.  Grace has been immersed in rocketry for the whole week, and spent all her playtime reading and planning a rocket to beat them all!

When I got home she’d already made three prototypes, although I suspect our fuel system would not be enough to lift them off the launch pad at all, so together we set about making the 35mm can version after some rather fraught piano practice.

Rocket, 35mm film can & gaffer tape

First version rather fell apart when it met water.

We then set about making a more study version, and  by means of gaffer tape (daddy’s favourite construction material), cardboard and the 35mm film can, we ended up with something that might withstand slightly more wetness and rough and tumble.

First attempt at launch failed as we had problems sealing the combustion chamber, but the second go was completely successful, and the rocket rose about three centimeters from the floor.  Much rejoicing.

I just wanted to include this link to words by James May about the Landrover Defender.  In case you don’t know, that’s what I drive.  Just great fun.  I love thinking that I can go absolutely anywhere (and with the TD5, sometimes quite fast!)

P717 JKO Crashed near Reigate on Flanchford Road in August 2007

Remember, they are tough motors: you can do this to them and walk away (no, actually I climbed out of the sunroof!) with only a broken thumb.  This is the one I rolled on a back road near Reigate in the summer of 2007.

When looking for a replacement I wasn’t too sure if the dealer sitting next to me on a test drive was too happy that he’d asked why I was looking for a new one.

Well, a number of things to think about today; first the lead developer on one of our magazines told me he was leaving the organisation.  I’ve really enjoyed working with him over the past two or three years, but I wish hime every success in whatever he moves on to.  He’s young enough and without ties such that it could be anything, anywhere.  Good luck, Ken.

Secondly, Amazon have finally given a date for the Practical Arduino book to arrive (well, not “a” date, but a range of dates) but at last it’s on its way.  Have been reading more on-line snippets and trying to formulate a few ideas about what to choose as a project; many ideas floating around, so once I get used to the gadget I’ll have plenty to choose from.  The elctronics bit isn’t a problem, but I do wonder how well I’ll get on with the programming side of things.  I’ll just have to do what I do with everything else and adapt what I can find that’s almost what I want.

Work threw up few challenges, but I had to get the IRC client working again.  No reply to my question on the #movabletype channel, but I answered myself anyway within a few minutes, and I guess most of the Americans were probably still in bed anyway.   I finished my scheme for excluding IP addresses from the blog infrastructure – mainly to stop search and other bots wasting cgi-bin resources, but I did have problems during the day with a Chineese e-mail address scraper which caused some outages of part of the system.  Hopefully, not any more!

• 2nd of two odd letters from Berlin arrived today. 1st, few weeks ago. with a stamp inside, 2nd with a bit of canvas. Nothing else. Ideas? #
• Trying to get to grips with IRC. again. Has proved useful in the past, though, so maybe the effort will be worthwhile, just looks antique #
• #UKSNOW RH3 2/10 traffic nightmare on A25 east #
• Taken daughter to swimming lesson but we are half an hour early. #
• Bug in #Sawmill has successful workaround; shame they didn't answer my question "where is the lock file?" some weeks ago! Good result. #
• Trading MT support calls today. #
• Off to pick up the curry. Yum Yum. #
• RT @unitedhosting: Business host DataGate vanishes – http://bit.ly/6RPg9X – Let us help you get back online! <– recommended #

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