Nicholas Booth Dot Com

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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Pictures from the Sefton Villas Christmas Lights Display, 2009.  We raised fractionally under £100 this year for Brooklands School in Reigate.  Click on the thumbnails for more detail.

A little exercise to see if I can integrate Twitter into my resurrected blog. One of the tools in my work Movable Type installation lets the bloggers there make a tweet when they publish an article. I even use it for my admin blog to tell them what’s going on and when I’ve broken something. Can I do the same for my personal WordPress blog? I think I can.

I’ve actually used two tools – one from xhanch.com for displaying recent tweets, and one from Alex King for the posting integration bit.

Well, if you’re reading the tweet or this post, then it’s done what it’s supposed to do!

Well – after a hard day Serena and I decided a curry was in order.  As usual we had a take-away from our favourite, the Dorking Brasserie.  If you’re ever nearby and fancy a Curry, then please accept this as a strong recommendation.  You should enjoy yourself.

After a day spent slaving at my Performance Assessment for 2009, an exercise that becomes more frustrating, pointless and quicker (as I’m getting better at the corporate speak) each year, I’ve had a little work result.

I had to set up a Sawmil log analysis server at the end of last year – and as is the way with stuff you want to get clear of, there was a bug.  Ticket raised, but no clear answer – just the usual “have you tried this” and so forth.  The error was evidenced by a message saying a log file couldn’t be created – and my ticket expressly asked where the log file was – along with a bunch of other diagnostic data helpfully supplied (quite a nice error handling system, I thought).  Anyway, the supplier had to be chased for resolution, after confirming there was still a fault.

The result is that there is a workaround, but you have to let the application create an executable lock file in the cgi-bin directory. Ugh!  At least I can move on, though.