January 31, 2005
Windows Anti-Spam
This just in from my mum:
Been away from my comp. for 3 days, and came back to 60 odd rubbish emails!
Quite apart from the luxury of only getting 20 spams a day (I get around 300 even with Amavis/SpamAssassin doing their thing), I guess I should work out a solution. Anyone got any recommendations? It needs to be Windows (client-side), ideally integrated with Outlook Express, and require the minimum of effort to maintain (so nothing complicated like training the filters, etc).
January 30, 2005
Rebuilding the Powerbook
As previously mentioned, fresh from the success of my hardware fix, I wiped the Powerbook's hard drive on Friday evening, and started the slow process of rebuilding my machine.
The main reason for doing this was that for some time now I've been running with between 2gb and 4gb free, which doesn't leave a whole lot of space for working in. I've read that pushing HFS+ beyond 90% full is risky (doing that for any filesystem is risky, I guess). I also know there's lots of cruft kicking around, including broken copies of my mail, multiple copies of X11, Gnome, etc. It currently takes about 30 seconds for my desktop to be up and running after logging in, which is just plain annoying. I have to take stuff apart to truly understand what makes them tick (hardware and software), and you never know how good your backups are until you use them, right?
(read more)
I've been making regular backups of my hard disk using CarbonCopyCloner, so after doing that, I threw in the Apple OS X DVD and set things going. Learning from previous experience, I was able to narrow down even further the list of stuff to install by default, leaving out extra printer drivers, languages, and (hurrah!) Internet Explorer. After a few minutes of whirring and copying, I had a fresh install of OS X. A fresh install ... with 72GB available. Not bad!
The machine pretty much spent the rest of the evening doing a whole load of software updates. I let it run while I watched a film on the linux box beside it. As soon as the software updates were done, I installed Firefox and Quicksilver. Without those two apps, I felt like I was working with both hands tied behind my back.
I then set about configuring the Preferences to my liking - specifically:
• In Appearance, setting the Font smoothing style to Medium - best for Flat panel. This really improves the readability of the text.
• In Dock, reducing the size to small, Magnification to medium, and Automatically hide and show the dock. I hardly use the dock, so I like it out of the way and unobtrusive.
• In Security, setting Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver, and Disable automatic login. This is me being a security freak. I don't go as far as password-protecting the open firmware, but it should deter idle troublemakers.
• In Displays, setting Show displays in menu bar. I plug the laptop into the TV frequently, so it's handy to be able to see the displays and select the right TV mode from the menu.
• In Keyboard & Mouse, Trackpad, setting Use trackpad for clicking, dragging. I don't understand why this isn't a default. The trackpad is clunky without it.
• In Sharing, setting the Computer Name to something ... a little less boring. Also, enable Remote Login. Computer name because... well, just because. Remote login because it's useful to be able to ssh into my laptop from elsewhere.
• In Speech, Spoken User Interface, setting Speak the phrase: Excuse me!, Speak the alert text, Announce when an application requires your attention. It's useful to have the computer say "Excuse me, Firefox needs your attention" if you're away from the keyboard. Not to mention that it freaks people out.
I then set about restoring stuff: first up was copying my mail. I seem to have 1.4gb of it at the moment, so while this was copying, I went hunting for old preferences in the backup. Simply copying ~/Library/Mail is not enough: there's a preference file com.apple.mail.plist in ~/Library/Preferences/ that is also needed. This is the same for other applications too... and some have more than one - for example ecto seems to have ~/Library/Preferences/ecto.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/kungfoo.tv.ecto.plist.
The next application to install was fink, since working without nano is simply not an option. And because I've spent too long using a Mac and I'm now too feeble to handle command-line stuff, FinkCommander.
I'm feeling blind without MenuMeters telling me what's happening with my bandwidth, CPU and memory. That's next on the install list, followed by the painful copy of my iLife data (photos and music), and an installation of iLife '04. This takes me down to 34GB free ... half gone. With a copy of my development environment (just the source code, not the applications), I lost another 11GB. Oooof.
Other things missing are my Keychains and Address Book. They are kept in ~/Library/Keychains and ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. It would be nice if all this user data was kept in one place.
More toys to install next: NetNewsWire, VLC, Desktop Manager and (sigh) Windows Media Player. Growl and Konfabulator (with Weather, GrrChat, iTunes Remote, SMART, Wastebasket), and SlimBatteryMonitor.
When you reinstall from the OSX DVD, an unfortunate side-effect is that the third-party applications that come pre-installed on the Mac are missing - in particular, GraphicConverter and OmniGraffle. I hastily installed the Gimp package and then ImageMagick via Fink, which replace GraphicConverter for now. I bought a license for the new version of OmniGraffle, so that problem is solved too.
Finally, in an attempt to stave off the day when I need to install MS Office, the latest beta of NeoOffice/J is installed.
Other things I do:
• Drag the Utilities folder onto the left-hand side of the Finder. It saves drilling-down into Applications. Likewise my "Downloads" folder. Though actually, with Quicksilver this is mostly irrelevant now.
• Set up Terminal Window Settings to close the window when the shell exists, use a default window dimension of 80x48, transparency of about 40%.
• Install SSHAgent, and tell it to manage global variables. This saves remembering passwords.
So now I have a mostly complete setup, and 12GB free. That's a gain of at least 8GB, and I have large applications like GarageBand and iMovie installed. I still have some development tools to add, but I have room to maneuver and best of all, it only takes 5 seconds to log in. Progress!
iTunes and DRM
Since Friday evening I've been erasing and restoring my powerbook, to clean out some of the cruft, undo some of my early mistakes as a newbie mac user, and find out just how good my backups are. It's been quite an interesting process, and I'll write more about it when it's finished. What I want to ranttalk about today is iTunes DRM.
When Paul's cat and floor conspired to give his computer a sudden bumpy death, he found out the hard way that you cannot simply download purchased music from the iTunes Music Store again. If you don't have a backup of the music, you have to buy it all a second time (or third time if you'd switched from vinyl, or fourth if you lost the CD, or fifth if you're REALLY unlucky). Needless to say, I made absolutely certain I had a backup of the songs I'd bought, all 69 of them. I'm surprised it's that many... that'll be the insidious nature of iTMS I guess. Anyway, I had no plans to give the moribund and corrupt recording industry another £55.
For the sake of argument, let's say I backed them up by dragging my music folder onto an external hard disk, as a regular user might do. (It was actually rsync magic, but the results are the same).
One of the first things that got copied back on to my freshly-wiped powerbook was my iTunes Music folder. Copying to and from an external disk seems like a pretty normal operation for your 'average' user to do, right? I was quite pleased when a cursory glance showed all my music, playlists, playcounts etc. were there, seemingly intact. Until this morning, when I plugged my iPod back in ...
Hello, what's this?
Some songs are not authorised to play on this computer? Well... uh... how come? I've logged back in to iTMS with the same username and password as before ... it's the same laptop as before, it's an identical copy of my music directory... this is a little confusing.
I took a look at the Apple support site, and it has this useful article on authorising and deauthorising a computer. Basically:
To authorize a computer to play songs or spoken word content purchased from the iTunes Music Store, select the item (in your library or the Purchased Music playlist), and click the Play button.
If the computer is already authorized to play songs purchased using your account, the song plays.
If the computer has not yet been authorized to play songs purchased using your account, you're asked to enter your ID and password. Enter the ID and password for the account with which the song was purchased.
That makes sense. I tried it, and it worked (with a caveat I'll come to later). However, there's a sting in the tail:
If you've already authorized five other computers to play your music purchases, you won't be able to play the songs on this computer until you deauthorize one of the already authorized computers.
So I've already lost one life, because even though this is the same machine with the same music collection, because I reinstalled without knowing this, I've had to authorise it a second time.
And this happens even if you are working from a backup. Apple says you can truly feel good about buying from the iTunes Music Store, but I'm beginning to wonder. I could be mistaken - maybe my method of backing up was at fault? I took a look at Apple's information on backing up your music files in iTunes, and they say:
Be sure to make regular backups of your music files (in your iTunes Music folder) by copying them to an external hard disk or other media. Otherwise, if your hard disk becomes damaged or you lose any of the music you've purchased, you'll have to buy any purchased music again to rebuild your library.
Right, so exactly what I did, and yet here I am fighting with DRM. The backup page has no warning about the cumbersome authorising or deauthorising process. And the ironic thing? The track in question which alerted me to this problem - REM's Around the Sun Redux - was a free download from the store, a promo for the new REM album. So what we've found out so far is that even though you make correct backups, even though you purchase and use music legitimately, you may eventually be unable to play the music you have legally purchased. Seems the only way to guarantee you can always play it is to own one of those shiny plastic things.
Aside: my record company lawyer friend would tell me here it's about making trade-offs and it's the price you pay for cheaper music and easy downloads. My response to that is that actually, no, it's just another way the record companies are going to try and make money out of us, whilst limiting our rights as much as possible. I'd probably swear a bit during the conversation, too, but she's used to that.
Of course, there's one more problem. The first song I ever bought from iTMS.
This was the first song I also removed the DRM from, to allow it to play on the linux laptop plugged in to my hifi. iTunes will not let me re-authorise this song. It turns out that the iTunes 4.7.1 update breaks tracks with broken DRM. There's a workaround for scrubbing non-working DRM files, but you know what? The copy of "These Words" that I downloaded via Limewire works just fine, so I think I'll just play that instead.
What have I learnt today?
- Backing up my data is not enough when it's DRMed. You don't own it, you're just borrowing it for five installations.
- Playing illegally-obtained music is a whole lot easier. As many people recommend, buy the songs on the iTunes Music Store and then download the MP3s through the file-sharing networks.
- If I'm going to unlock the DRM on my tracks, I also need to convert them to mp3 and remove any trace of the DRM.
- I should stick with buying CDs.
I hope this all serves as a warning for naive iTMS users out there.
January 28, 2005
New blogger
Jeremy has just entered the blogosphere. Update your bookmarks and subscriptions, folks. He's also got a new web address, http://www.fiveone.org/.
Brrr
John's friend Laurie is hitting the low temperatures right now.
Oh man, I wish we had those extremes over here.
Update: er so it's Lori. Apparently Laurie is her dad. oooooops
British institution
Oi! NO!
You don't pile the kebab mix in the tray and put the pita on top. You're ruining an institution.
That's all I have to say on this.
January 26, 2005
Deconstructing my Mac
.jpg "Laptop and combo drive")
The combo drive finally showed up this morning, so I just spent a nerve-wracking two hours dismantling my powerbook and installing it. 26 screws, three connectors, some stress-relieving bubblewrap bursting, and three bits of sticky tape later, it's up and running again with a functional combo drive.
.jpg "The underside with memory slot exposed")
I followed the excellent 15" powerbook fixit guide which talked me through every step, including which screws to remove and what order to tackle things in. I certainly wouldn't have managed it without those instructions - the powerbook is like some devious chinese puzzle. I've opened my fair share of computer hardware, both desktops and laptops. Like any geek, I've run computers without their cases, ripped out and replaced PSUs, done RAM upgrades, put in new gfx cards, network cards, CPUs - the lot. But taking apart a powerbook ... a thing of beauty and craftsmanship, the most expensive computer I've ever owned ... well, that took every bit of courage I could muster.
.jpg "Screws")
I'd taken the door over the memory slot off before, so I was used to the tiny tiny screws that Apple use to hold this thing together. What was slightly disconcerting was the amount of force needed to undo some of the screws. They all use loctite-like stuff to keep the screws from shaking loose, but they're also done up exceedingly tightly. And many of them look slightly wonky in their sockets, before I'd touched them. Another hiccup is that the torx screwdriver that was recommended with the combo drive was the wrong one - I was sent a T8, but on my laptop, the screws were a T7. Thankfully I happened to have one lying around. A magnetised screwdriver was also indispensable for catching the screws as soon as they were free.
.jpg "The inside of a powerbook")
Opening the machine was actually a fairly smooth operation, and there was only one point that I got truly stuck and couldn't figure out how to proceed: unlatching the lid at the front. The instructions talk about a silver metal latch, but I couldn't figure out where it was or how it worked. In the end the lid just popped off - but I'm unsure whether this was right or not. There's now a slight gap above the combo drive where the case doesn't seem to sit quite right. When I'm feeling braver, I might undo it all and try to fit the case more securely. I'll probably wait until I've tracked down a larger hard drive, first.
.jpg "The PCMCIA slot")
Looking inside the guts of the machine is quite fascinating. The first thing that struck me was how well the space was utilised (well, duh!), but immediately after I noticed that a huge chunk of the left-hand side was used up by the PCMCIA slot. Given I haven't used the slot and probably never will, it makes me think Apple could do us all a favour and release a powerbook without this slot. I'm not sure what they'd put there in place of it ... hot-swappable hard drive? More memory? Or maybe just shrink the laptop a little...
Here's the next surprise: the size of the connectors in this thing. I know that hard drive ribbon connectors have been shrinking, but wow! ... the size of the combo drive's connector is insane! Take a look at these three pictures:
.jpg "Edge connector attached to motherboard")
.jpg "Edge connector removed from motherboard")
.jpg "The edge connector")
Ridiculously small!
.jpg "Parts of a powerbook")
Anyway, I got the machine in pieces and got the old drive out. The old drive was a Matsushita CW-8122-C, and the new one is a CW-8123-B ... so I assume there's some sort of incremental improvement in there. It's certainly not noise - it sounds just as noisy as the old one did when it was working. The instructions stopped short of mentioning that you need to remove the mounting kit from the old drive and screw it to the new drive - though I guess this is pretty obvious once you reach this point.
.jpg "Underneath the keyboard")
A bonus of taking the laptop apart was that I got to find out what goes on underneath the trackpad - something I've always been curious about. Sadly, finding out what goes on amounts to seeing a PCB bolted to the underside of the lid. But hey, better than nothing! Apple also has a serious orange sticky tape fetish. I assume this is some magic anti-static tape rather than the everyday clear tape the rest of us use. There's certainly a fair amount in the guts of the machine, holding wires in place, covering sharp edges, etc.
.jpg "Happy powerbook booting")
Putting the powerbook together was much easier, and I've never been more relieved to see the Apple logo in the middle of the screen. I chucked a CD in, it mounted, ejected, all is well. I haven't yet tried booting from the OS X DVD. The whole operation took me about an hour and a half. It might have been quicker, but I took time to make notes, take photos, and generally be incredibly cautious.
How does this compare to an Apple repair? Well, it cost me about £129 for the drive, screwdriver, and USPS postage. Add to that £20.93 of VAT, and £13.50 random parcelfarce surcharge for "clearance fee", for a total of £163.43. Last year when I shopped around, I was quoted £280 for a replacement drive. Apple quoted two weeks for replacing the drive under warranty.
I'd definitely recommend this as a solution to Apple's stupid warranty turnaround times. for me at least, £164 is a small price to pay for a two hour operation rather than a two week operation.
January 25, 2005
Podcasting
Loving the iPod.
What's surprised me about it is the way it's getting used, though. I thought I'd spend a lot of time listening to the ton of music I've got, and I do, but I'm predominantly listening to podcasts. I have three sources I'm subscribed to that I listen to regularly: Coverville, The Daily Source Code, and OpenPodcast.org. The last of those is by far the weirdest - it's an audio version of Forrest Gump's box of chocolates - a completely random selection of tracks, ranging from a tap-dancing newsreader to sound of the day to lascivious biddies to random in-car waffling ... it's like nothing you've ever heard on the radio.
I had a lot of preconceptions about podcasters - self-obsessed individuals spewing forth nonsense - but I hadn't realised quite how entertaining it can be. It's also very nice to hear the difference between "noise for fun" and today's banal selection of commercial radio. I thoroughly recommend it.
Continental drift part 2
I'm tracking my replacement combo drive coming from Huntsville, Alabama. The order was processed on 12th, and shipped via USPS Global Express Mail, but unfortunately it didn't make it to the nearest post office until 18th. Since then:
- ACCEPTANCE, January 18, 2005, 2:03 pm, HUNTSVILLE, AL 35816
- ENROUTE, January 18, 2005, 4:41 pm, HUNTSVILLE, AL 35813
- INTERNATIONAL DISPATCH, MIAMI AMC, January 20, 2005, 1:38 pm
- ARRIVED ABROAD, GREAT BRITAIN, January 24, 2005, 10:50 am
- INTO FOREIGN CUSTOMS, GREAT BRITAIN, January 24, 2005, 11:07 am
- Your item cleared customs in GREAT BRITAIN at 11:40 am on January 25, 2005.
So I'm guessing it'll hit Norwich some time tomorrow or Thursday. I'm kinda shocked that it took four days to get from Miami to the UK ... I assume it's either due to the weekend, or maybe the plane flew the long way round?
I'm looking forward to getting the new drive fitted to the Mac - it desperately needs the drive nuking and a fresh install, as a lot of cruft has built up in the last fourteen months of use. I'm surprised, though, at how well it's held up to the serious punishing it has received - broken installs of fink, darwinports, etc ... I just really need to reclaim disk space.
January 23, 2005
Snow
Speaking of snow, I love this:
"In New York City (NYC), at least 30cm (a foot) of snow was expected. [...] New Yorkers were stocking up on supplies to ride out the storm indoors. In Mamaroneck, north of New York City, long queues had formed at a local store where people stripped the shelves of meat, potatoes, and beer." -- US in severe snowstorm warnings
(emphasis mine)
Damn right! Priorities people, priorities.
Diving and flying and holidays
Incredibly jealous, but eek.
Adrian first warned me of the risks associated with diving and flying in 2001 when we went to Cyprus and did a short introductory scuba dive. Since then, Jeremy's diving exploits have taught me a lot more about the dangers.
In other news, looks like I'll be returning to Cyprus this year, spending some time in a villa near Latchi. Something to look forward to, particularly as we're in for some snow tonight.
January 21, 2005
How are things with you?
Although I sympathise with Jeremy's plumbing problems, it's comforting in a way to know that things are no better in America when it comes to chasing tradesmen and insurers.
The latest in my long-running saga with NatWest Home Insurance is that a large cheque they think they sent on 5th, 6th, or maybe 7th of January (they don't seem to sure) failed to arrive, but a subsequent much smaller cheque sent on 17th has. So the large cheque was cancelled and will be re-issued, and will be with me some time in February.
In other news, despite frequent maintenance to the tracks, journeys from Norwich to London now take two hours, and the return journey seems to average around two hours and twenty minutes. I don't know if we're the subject of freakish localised continental drift or something, but Norwich is now about 30 minutes further away from London. Good to see things improving as we move into the future.
All of which leads me to wonder: is it like this everywhere in the (ha ha) "developed" world? Are plumbers fully booked in every country? Does public transport universally mean travel ordeals? Do insurance companies pay promptly without screwing you around? Is there any place in this blighted world of ours that is SANE AND REASONABLE?
Wanted: nice place to live. Must have temperate climate, low crime rate, plentiful tradesmen, good transport infrastructure, cheap internet.
Where's my byline?
Hmm. Compare this:
QUIT SCREWING US APPLE. The base mini in the States is $499, or £267 at today's exchange rates. On the UK store it's retailing for £339. That's a £72 markup. Even if you discount VAT, it's a £21 markup. Time to do some importing.
From my blog, last week. With this:
Whingeing British Mac fans were quick to pitch in by pointing out that the cheaper of the two Mac Mini configurations costs $499 in the US - around £267 at current exchange rates. However, UK buyers pay £339.
Of course, petitioners forget that the UK price contains sales tax, charged at a rate of 17.5 per cent, whereas the US price does not. So the comparable UK price would be £289. Still £22 more than the dollar-sterling exchange price, but a darn sight smaller differential than the moaners would have you believe. Different import duties apply too, which may also yield a higher UK price than the dollar-sterling translation would suggest.
From el Reg's article, Euro Apple fans moan over Mac Mini pricing.
The end of the article is pretty interesting, talking about the various ways that manufacturers are forcibly localising their products (region-encoded dvd players and ink cartridges, power supplies). It seems like the more multinational we come, the harder it gets to live a multinational life.
January 19, 2005
January 18, 2005
Mac Mini, price big
Engadget has picked up on the fact that Mac Minis aren't so affordable after all. Talking to Paul the other day, I mentioned that I was tempted to go to America and buy one, or get it sent over as a gift. He pointed out this was probably a bit naughty, and that I'd likely get clobbered for taxes.
This prompted me to check with Customs and Excise to see what the implications are. I recently ordered a replacement combo drive for my Mac from the States, where it worked out almost half as expensive thanks to the weak dollar. I figured it'd be a wise plan to know exactly what it should cost when it finally arrives.
Here's the fun part. In order to work out the correct amount of duty and VAT payable, you need a "10 digit commodity code". Codes are listed in a three volume annual publication. Sounds like a gripping read. Thankfully, you can self-classify your goods on the European Commission website.
After a bit of mining through the Europa website, My best guess is 8522905100 which would seem to suggest no duty is payable on the combo drive (but I could be wrong, and probably am).
I tried to work out what duty and VAT would be due on an imported Mac Mini. Unfortunately, the Europa site seems a bit behind the times, as it fails to list "computers" as a specific category (though oddly, it does list Particle Accelerators and Nuclear Reactors). My best guess for a Mac Mini commodity code is 8543899599. For this, apparently duty is 3.7%.
If you add the 3.7% duty to VAT at 17.5% (I'm not clear which way round you charge it ... duty then VAT? VAT then duty?), the difference between the UK price and the US price becomes much less significant - closer to £15. So maybe Apple are playing nice after all?
January 17, 2005
Insurance insurance
It's Monday lunchtime, which means it must be dealing with household insurance time.
Following the terrible service I suffered at the hands of Robert Widdrington awful plumbers (called 12 times and no resolution, hello google), I finally got a sensible quote sent off to NatWest Home Insurance last Tuesday. Today, after speaking with them at length over the phone, they told me they'd cover the emergency callout and the radiator repair, but getting a plumber out to assess the cause of the radiator's failure (£42) was a "consequential loss".
I know, it's only £42, but I'm already shelling out £100 of the repairs, because that's what my excess is. On top of that, they specifically told me they would cover this cost. Gah.
Anyway, they've agreed to go and replay the telephone conversation I had with them back in November, where they told me they would pay for the cost of a callout. They'll then get back to me.
Now all I need to sort out is an insurance policy that will cover me for losses incurred when insurance companies fail to pay out and I'm forced to spend endless days chasing them.
January 12, 2005
Mac Mini
Great, Apple brought out the Mac Mini. As I said to quite a few people last night, this is perfect, and means I can finally convince my family to move over to the Mac at low cost. I'll probably buy one myself as a set-top box for the lounge. I won't buy one just yet though - I'll hang on until Tiger comes out. I expect quite a lot of people will do that.
Now onto the gripes.
The Mac Mini is crap. It's not innovative. It's not terribly exciting. It's just a cheap little box. It's a wasted, missed opportunity. It's either Apple playing safe and pandering to the recording industry, or Apple misjudging the market again - like they did with the iPod Photo.
Here's what they should have done with the Mac Mini:
- Get rid of the modem port. How many people do you know that still use dial-up internet access? Just like Apple killed the floppy disk, it's time for them to kill modems.
- Get rid of the ethernet port. I'm going out on a limb a bit here, but I reckon most people are sick of all the wires needed to drive a computer these days. Wired connectivity is so last year. Apple could really push Airport sales, or do Airport/Mini bundles.
- Got some spare space at the back now? Great. Get rid of the stupid S-Video/composite adapter and put those on the back of the Mac instead. Let people plug straight into the TV without the need for unsightly bits hanging off the back.
- Pump up the disk space to, say, 200GB, and bundle some PVR software. Make it a proper set-top box.
Here's why I think they haven't done a built-in TV adapter: by monitoring sales of the adapter, they can see exactly how many people are hooking this thing up to a TV, and judge demand for a "media centre mac". Expect a revised Media Centre Mini (much like the spoof iHome) to be announced this time next year - or if sales of the adapter are hot enough - autumn this year.
Oh, and one last thing. QUIT SCREWING US APPLE. The base mini in the States is $499, or £267 at today's exchange rates. On the UK store it's retailing for £339. That's a £72 markup. Even if you discount VAT, it's a £21 markup. Time to do some importing.
January 11, 2005
MacWorld streaming live...
So, Apple failed to broadcast the MacWorld keynote live today. But so far, 852 people are in the IRC channel to read the blow-by-blow account relayed by people in the auditorium. I think Apple really shot themselves in the foot by delaying the webcast, as it means those of us that couldn't make it get the unspun version of the corporate story:
[17:13] <KFI_Leo> second highsest grossing store now
[17:14] <KFI_Leo> imac sales...
[17:14] <KFI_Leo> blah blah blah
It doesn't have the enjoyment of watching Steve "the master showman" Jobs at work, but it's certainly a great way of getting "just the facts" with none of the b.s.
Update: The server's at irc://irc.slashnet.org/#mercworld but it's full, hovering around 890 people.
January 10, 2005
How many plumbers ...
I'm working from home this morning, because I've been assured that a plumber is coming "first thing" to look at my radiator.
Back in November, my spare room radiator sprung a leak. After calling around, the 11th plumber I spoke to was able to come out and do the emergency work required to stop the leak (removing the radiator and capping the pipes). Since then, it's been one long nightmare trying to get the insurance claim sorted out and a replacement installed.
NatWest Home Insurance told me that I need to get a quote for the fix from a plumber, so I did that. It wasn't easy. I called five different plumbers. Two said they'd fax a quote and didn't. One said they didn't have anyone in Norwich that could handle it. One offered to do a quote, but wanted £25 for it. Finally, a plumber based just round the corner from me gave me a quote over the phone and then faxed it through to me. I dutifully added a cover letter and faxed it off to NatWest.
After three calls to NatWest to chase it, they told me that they had received the fax and spoken to the plumbers, but needed proof that the leak was caused by either freezing or high pressure. Apparently, general every-day leaks aren't covered. I'm not sure what caused this leak - it wasn't freezing, but it could have been pressure, it could have been a duff radiator, it could have been rust. I'm no expert, but surely any unexpected leak is worthy of an insurance claim? If the heating system is maintained, it's not possible to tell whether there's a problem or not until the damn thing leaks, is it?
Aaaanyway. I called the plumbers back, and they said sure, they could write to NatWest. I asked them to fax me, so I could forward it. And then I heard nothing. So I called them back, and they said they'd take care of it tomorrow. Nothing. So I called them back, they apologised, and said they'd deal with it tomorrow. Nothing. So I called them back. They said they'd try to get something done today. Nothing.
Remember here that out of five plumbers, these were the only ones that responded to my initial request for a quote. I figured I was more likely to be successful by persisting with them than by switching to some other plumber at this point. And, of course, NatWest already had one quote from them, so I didn't want to confuse things by bringing in another player at this point.
So I called them back. No reply. Well, getting close to Christmas now, they were probably down the pub. So I called them back. No reply. Well, we're into the New Year, but perhaps they are still hungover. So I called them back. Apparently the guy that needs to take care of it wasn't there, so they'd try tomorrow. Nothing. So I called them back. Apparently their computers have a virus, and they can't do anything right now. They'd try later. Nothing. So I called them back.
This time, they explained that they couldn't really give me a letter saying the radiator burst due to high pressure, as it puts them in an awkward position. They could send a guy out to give me a free quote and to take a look at the radiator though, after which they could write the letter. Great. So the plumber made an appointment with me for first thing Monday morning, and they said he'd call before he arrived.
Nothing.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't qualify as first thing Monday morning any more, even by the most liberal of timekeepers. Time to phone again.
So far, I have made 37 phone calls, including the initial emergency calls. 11 to one plumber, and 11 to NatWest. I'm amazed.
Update: I called them back. Someone decided it wasn't worth coming out to do the free quote. Someone else forgot to call me and let me know. They can, however, come out and quote for £50+VAT.
I called one of the other plumbers that failed to send a quote last time, and he should be here this afternoon. £40. Ouch.
Of cloned disks and USB (not) booting on a Mac
My weekend of disk shuffling is at an end, but alas it seems it was all for nothing. Attempts to convince the Mac to boot from my freshly-cloned external USB disk consistently fail.
I tried three ways to clone my laptop's hard disk to the USB drive:
Unfortunately, CarbonCopyCloner failed first time round because I deleted some files while it was cloning. Second time round, I wasn't able to boot off the disk so I tried another package.
IMsafe wasn't successful - it crashed first time I tried to copy, which left me feeling unwilling to try it again.
asr, a built-in utility "Apple Software Restore", is designed to efficiently copy disk images onto volumes and clone volumes. I tried it as follows:
asr -source / -target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ 1 -erase
Unfortunately, the resultant cloned disk still won't boot. When I select the USB drive at boot (by holding down the ALT/option key) and then review the console boot messages (by holding down the Apple/command and v keys), I see errors in talking to the USB drive (MakeDevice error setting address), followed by rather plaintive "Still waiting for root device" messages as it fails to boot.
In fairness, this USB drive is kinda old, but still... this sucks. I'm guessing either something's screwed up with my use of asr, or the drive simply doesn't support booting. It takes about four hours to create the clone, so I think I'll give up for now and check out the prices of fast external firewire disks.
Meanwhile, at least I have an identical copy of my hard drive.
January 9, 2005
January 8, 2005
links for 2005-01-08
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du discrepancy
Will someone please explain to this poor, confused person what's going on here?
OS X's lovely GUI suggests that I only have 26GB to copy, but the 'du' unix utility claims there's 30GB. Which is right? Why is there a difference?
I've just spent a long time waiting for a copy to complete, when it was doomed to fail due to lack of disk space at the destination.
Thankfully I used rsync so all is not lost, and I can prune and start again, but I'm still bemused. WTF?
What's your backup backup?
Ouch.
I was logging in to the MovableType web interface to delete some comment spam, but the login page failed to be displayed - instead I got an error telling me that Postgres didn't know anything about my MT database.
So, I logged in to the server and asked for a list of the databases available, and sure enough, Postgres had become absent-minded and forgotten them all. More specifically, the recent Debian upgrade of the Postgres package had not smoothly migrated the data. I recall doing the upgrade (it was only a couple of days ago), and everything seemed fine, but I trusted what the upgrade told me and didn't check any of the databases or tables. Ooops. Time to get worried - all the databases on that machine can be rebuilt from source files (they are test installations of sites in development), except for my blog. The last dump I have of MovableType is from the middle of last year.
This is where it gets really entertaining. I was zapping comment spam to kill time whilst waiting for a disk copy to finish (24gb off a slow USB disk). Today I'm doing some serious disk shuffling, getting backups off one disk onto another, so I can repartition my external drive and use it to clone the Powerbook. Since my Powerbook's combo cd drive is dead, I want a backup way of booting, and cloning seems to be the answer. In order to do this, I've deleted all but the most recent backups of various machines... so finding a dead database sent shivers down my spine.
Fortunately, Debian made a backup of the Postgres data directory prior to upgrading. After switching files around, this seems to be working. But it takes a nasty bump like that to remind me to not only do backups on a regular basis, but to check they can be restored from easily.
So now I'll do what I've been meaning to do for ages, and get pg_dump backups instead of filesystem-level backups sorted out, and to fully automate all the backups so I have proper rotations and don't have to think about it. I've already got a spare server on the end of a very fast line set up in the office (geographical displacement, since our primary is in Docklands). I just need to populate it with some huge disks and set things going.
A slightly more reassuring "restore" story: I nuked my Windows XP laptop install in favour of Windows 2003 whilst testing deployment of some of our software just before Christmas. Prior to doing so, I used the ubuntu installation also on the machine to backup the XP drive:
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/backup/xp.img
This image included such essential stuff as my Half-Life 2 saved game, so I was somewhat nervous about being able to restore it. I'm happy to say that after four hours of disk thrashing last night (uh, yeah, I forgot to turn DMA on), it's back up and running:
dd if=/backup/xp.img of=/dev/hda1
It will be nice when vendors and operating system developers (proprietary and open) come up with faultless simple ways of doing backups. I'm puzzled that such a critical component of computing is left to third-party solutions.
January 5, 2005
Tasks Pro
I've been evaluating Tasks Pro as I still haven't found a time/project/todo tracking package that does everything I want. Given enough time and money, I'd just write one myself. Unfortunately time and money are the two things I have the least of right now, so an off-the-shelf solution is looking likely.
I was already predisposed toward the software as I've been reading Alex's blog for many months, and I respect his path toward being self-employed. But I have to say, first impressions are very favourable even without any bias. Tasks Pro is that most rare of things: a self-evident application. It's mostly obvious what I need to do and how to do it, and the application aids rather than hinders as I set about adding my mammoth list of to-do items.
There are a few points that trouble me:
- It would be nice to be able to assign a task to multiple people, though I guess that doesn't always make a lot of sense.
- It would also be nice if the task IDs were completely transparent: they shouldn't be visible in the task list, and they shouldn't be needed when referring to the parent of a given task.
- Inheritance of multiple groups seems a little flakey for sub-tasks.
- Finally, iCal integration makes individual tasks turn up on the day they are due, not for the period within which they exist (so a week-long task shows up at the end of the week, for example, rather than the whole week).
I'll get round to posting these to the Tasks Pro forum when I've spent more time with the application.
Real selling points have to be the fact that there is iCal integration, and also RSS integration. Seeing your TODO list show up in NetNewsWire is a great reminder that you should be working, not reading blogs ;-)
Anyway, now I can see my TODO list, I'd better get on with work.
January 3, 2005
links for 2005-01-03
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Public transport
Following up on the new bus prices post, Jeremy pointed me to a Guardian article on buses, with the particularly memorable quote: "Margaret Thatcher once remarked that anybody over the age of 30 who used a bus could consider themselves a failure." There's a whole lotta truth in that - looking at the usual set of passengers on my route into town, I usually see an above-average proportion of obviously poor people.
It would be nice to see the sort of political intervention the article talks about, with service level agreements and penalties. Since the Norwich bus service was privatised, quality has dropped whilst the prices have inexorably risen.
It's not just the buses, of course. My first bad experience with trains of 2005 was at 2am on 2nd January - nothing like starting as you mean to go on. The last train out of Waterloo was the one I needed, heading to Hampton Wick. It got 30 yards out of the station, and then stopped as "emergency engineering works" were blocking the line ahead. After a 30 minute wait (on a 40 minute journey), the train reversed back into the platform, and we were directed to another platform to try again. All four passengers on the train, and even the driver, were incredibly annoyed. It would have been far cheaper for the train company to chuck us all in cabs as soon as the problem was spotted.
I think I might take a look at how my council tax is being spent - the breakdown between pointless new town centre car parks and subsidies for failing public transport services - and start asking pointed questions of the local politicians. If I must consider myself a failure for using the bus, I'm going to make sure I'm a bloody awkward failure :-)
New Year, New Prices
The woefully incompetent incumbent Norfolk bus service operator hiked prices by an inflation-busting 12.5% at the start of this year, with a single ticket into Norwich now costing £1.80 instead of £1.60. The UK inflation rate is 1.2%. I foresee a lot of cycling in 2005.
2004: quick review
Hmmm, just thought it'd be useful to look at the main events of 2004 so I can judge whether 2005 was any better this time next year.
In business, we chased two major contracts with international support from our Orixo colleagues. We failed to win either of them, but it taught me a heck of a lot about what really big companies are like and how to collaborate internationally. We got more serious about it working with Pro-netics to help VNU migrate to Cocoon. We also formed a partnership with Pro-netics. We landed a contract jointly with Otego. We also did a fair bit of work in the UK ;-)
I travelled like mad. I added Italy, Corfu, Romania, Holland and Switzerland to the list of places I've been. Here's a before-and-after pair of maps:
I began learning to play the piano. One lesson, then ran out of time again.
I resumed Taiji, then ran out of time. There's a trend appearing.
I started buying songs from iTunes, and removing the DRM so I could play them on my linux box.
Since getting a new bike in November, I cycled 60 miles. Despite being away about 50% of December...
The social software bug bit me, and now I do music, bookmarks, photos and networking online. Though I pretty much gave up on Orkut after the first few weeks, there didn't seem much point in it over and above iChat.
Funny how quickly 12 months goes by.
iPodding
So just before Christmas, I finally succumbed and bought world's most expensive dictaphone. I'm a fully paid-up member of the iPod generation now, though I eschew the white earphones for something a little less obvious.
I'm still in two minds over whether this was a worthwhile purchase or not. I never used to listen to my walkman much, and I bought a flash-based MP3 player a couple of years ago that then languished in a drawer - primarily because it was too old to be recognised as a USB drive and could only by synced using Windows, but also because I never much felt like listening to music.
The iPod certainly has a lot of things to love. The syncing on a Mac is absolutely flawless. I managed to get my entire music collection synced and set up whilst eating breakfast at Heathrow Airport before flying to Zurich, though it was entertaining watching my laptop's battery being killed by the dual load of thrashing hard disk and recharging iPod. Since then, I've really grown to appreciate the simplicity and transparency of playlists and syncing.
The accessories you do get with the iPod - USB cable, Firewire cable, plug, dock - are all good. I tried out the dock for the first time this evening, and it's wonderful to drop the iPod in place and be able to play music through an old set of speakers whilst charging. I've got the USB cable plugged into a hub, so I can keep the dock permanently set up and the Firewire cable in my bag for when I'm on the road. Nice.
The accessories that don't come with the iPod 4G really suck. I wish headphones with a remote were provided, as I feel incredibly conspicuous every time I take the iPod out. I also think Apple need to either toughen up the iPod exterior or ship it with a tougher case.
I got the 40gb player as I currently have around 30gb of music and didn't want to keep swapping around the music on it. I have noticed that even with my fairly well-filed collection, it's still difficult to track down music using the wheel. With that much music the interface kinda breaks down. Maybe this will improve as I get more used to it, but for now I'm just making playlists and using them. I particularly enjoyed throwing together a playlist for Christmas day and then plugging the iPod into the hi-fi. Unfortunately I spent rather more than I should have on the iTunes Music Store on Christmas Eve to achieve this ... oops :-)
I usually listen intently to my surroundings when I'm out and about, so it's been a strange and disorienting experience having music on these last few days. I've been surprised at how much a good soundtrack influences life - beyond the simple affect of a fast bass-line increasing your pace. Perceptions and thoughts seem more colourful. This is going to take some getting used to.
Back
I'm back in Norwich again, after what feels like an age away from home. I spent Christmas week at my parents' house, with presents and pantomime and kids and chaos. It was nice to have an almost completely offline break, with the only exposure to my laptop coming from watching my nephew play Age of Mythology on it. I was happy to see his imagination captured by the strategy and thinking genre, rather than the usual Playstation beat 'em up. I think I'll send my old Red Alert CDs back, and see if I can encourage this more challenging gaming streak.
There was also the usual festive PC fixing sessions, documented well elsewhere in the blogosphere. This year's fixups included reinstalling a scanner, setting up a new digital camera for my dad, installing Service Pack 2, and a whole heap of Anti-Virus, spyware and adblocking updates.
I was home briefly on Thursday 30th to dump bags, pick up clean clothes, and get a good night's sleep, then on Friday I headed down to London to spend New Year with old friends. It was good to catch up with Trace, Steve, Nessa and James, and to meet Trace's old school friend, Sam. Keeping up with the catching up theme, I spent New Year's Day getting absurdly drunk with David, Elise, Trace and Thom. So much so, in fact, that I wound up sleeping over at Trace and Steve's again, as there's no Norwich train out of London at 2am. Whoops.
So that's the whirlwind marathon festive season over for another year. Hello 2005. The usual resolutions apply - get body, finances, house and life in shape.
It feels like I didn't make much progress in 2004. Let's see if I can make this year count.