Network Geography and Topology...

So, it should be simple: just plug all PCs into the router/modem that is connected to the internet, either with wires or wireless and full internet connectivity on all PCs.

But then geography comes into play. The router/modem is in the kitchen, the desktops are upstairs, and static cabling is simply not an option. So the problem is connecting an old 750MHz PC running Linux so that it can be accessed remotely (don't want an extra keyboard, mouse, video hanging around) to the upstairs desktop PC running MS Vista, without the expense of a wireless network adapter.

I tried adding a spare router and using the Vista PC as abridge, but it didn't seem to work and raised the average power consumption anyway. But an answer lies in a simple Ethernet crossover cable and Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing.

Setting up ICS is easy, although it sets up the PC as 192.168.0.1, so it may be necessary to change the IP address of the router/modem or Vista throws out a very unhelpful "can't do it 'cos I just can't!" errors.

Then the Linux network connector has to be set up. This is straightforward (delete the old one connection, and add a new one), although automatic IP address allocation using DHCP appears to be needed.

And that is it. Just need to try and set up the dreaded XDMCP ...!

Countdown...

There is a very strong possibility that by the end of the month I will be a dad. I've been preparing for it for nearly nine months (obviously), and very much looking forward to it. But it is still just a little bit scary...!

Design Patterns...

Looks like a good source of information here:

http://sourcemaking.com/

Will have to get round to reading it at some point...!

Routings...

So, image you have a happy wireless network which allows you to connect happily to the internet from your desktop machine.

But you also want to connect to a wired network which contains a Linux machine which won't connect to the wireless network for reason of not having a wireless adapter.

Easy you may thing, just connect the desktop to both networks and off you go. And it is that easy except that the connection from the Desktop to the internet via the wireless network is lost.

This is because the routing tables are set up to go through the wired network first, so the machine fails to find the internet (that is only my guess, but it certainly sounds plausible and the solution fits).

So, we just need to update the routing tables. These are displayed from an elevated command line with:

route print

And should show the active routes, with the network destination 0.0.0.0 as the two gateways. So all we have to do is to change the metric of the wireless network so it is less than that of the wired network with a command like:

route change 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 metric 25 if 9

where if is the interface number of the wireless adapter from the Interface List, and metric is less than that of the wired adapter.

Easy...

A Constellation of Mobiles...

... courtesy of Coldplay at Wembley. We were up with the gods, which afforded a fantastic view of a really excellent gig. Plus points to Jay-Z and Girls Aloud who supported admirably, minus points to all those who left before the last song as my 7months pregnant wife insisted on staying till the end; and full marks to her!

Community Spirit

I have just posted this at: http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/board?board.id=pcsuite and thought I'd better save it here for posterity:

I have just spent several days trying to work out how to get Nokia PC Suite working on my Windows Vista machine, when it installed first time when I had no problems on my old XP laptop. On the Vista machine, every time I installed it (and I tried several times), I would start PCSuite.exe and get an error [Loading Language Failed] and get no further...

So, it turns out that (for me anyway) the problem is with registry permissions and ownership. To fix it, I had to run regedit.exe and go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Nokia and take ownership of the whole folder: right clicking Permissions...Advanced...Owner, and making Administrators the current owner.

I also made sure that all the folders under this one had Group names SYSTEM, Administrators (both with Full control) and Users (with Read only control).

And lo and behold, it now works...!

I'm not a Windows expert, so I'm sure someone else will have more details, but I've not seen this written down and hope it helps...!

Apart from the 3 days of installation effort, the software looks good... Enjoy!

Right of Navigation...

Nice article here from Griff Rhys Jones about the rights (or lack therefore) for canoeists to navigate English and Welsh rivers. It is also interesting in that he isn't the gung ho white water type; he just enjoys a gentle flat water paddle.

Also, a really poor reply to the article here, from someone who claims to be a canoeist, but given he thinks improving access will lead to 'anarchy', I'm not convinced by his credentials...

DAB is the answer...?

Interesting article here about why the switchover to digital radio is a bad idea. And a pretty well reasoned one at that: I've never quite figured why the government thinks analogue FM transmission is a bad idea when analogue radios are so ubiquitous, and DAB ones so rare.

You can only guess that the government of the day will say its a great idea right up until the point they cancel the switchover and common sense once more prevails...

Where The Wild Things Are...

This trailer is fantastic! I don't remember ever reading the book as a kid, but I'm looking forward to the film...

Connected Again...

After a month away, we now once more have broadband. And we've missed it! It has meant that we have done more useful things with our time, like so stuff in the garden. But it has meant difficulty with email, TV listings, consumer reviews, shopping, and other trivial stuff.

We had nothing for three weeks, then we got a telephone line and 56k dial-up. I'd forgotten how slow it was, and now all websites are content rich, assuming you all have fast broadband, making it (effectively) even slower to use.

But now, thanks to Virgin, we have a fast broadband connection of approximately 100 times the speed of the dial up. And I shall promise to try and use it less and do more worthwhile things, but I'm very glad to have it back....

To The Manor...

Just spent a very smashing night at Charingworth Manor, sandwiched between spending time in and around the really lovely and quite charming Chipping Campden. My wife really is fantastic (she made the booking), and with all that is going on at the moment, it was great to just be away from home.  It made for a very Happy Easter!

Wedding Photography...

...is really quite hard. M&E's wedding last weekend was superb. And I enjoyed taking photos, of which some of them even turned out to be quite reasonable.

But I think to be the wedding photographer would be far too stressful. It is difficult being in the right place at the right time to capture the casual moments, and often I'd see what would make a great photograph, but by the time I'd raised my camera, the moment had gone.  Added to that, quite naturally at weddings you want to talk to people and they want to talk to you. So you keep getting distracted from taking pitures, which I guess is why getting a stranger in to do the job isn't a bad thing.

Still, I enjoyed it, and really like my new flash for taking photos indoors. Wish I knew how to use it properly though....

Tempting...

Just received this email:

Greetings,

With due respect, I am Mr. Wang Kuang Hsiang, Director of Operations and Head Wealth Management Division of Taiwan Business Bank (TBB) Taipei, Taiwan. I have  a  business proposal of about $21.5M USD for you. Should you be  interested in working with me on this, do indicate your interest by sending me your full names, phone number and current residential  address. I would prefer you reach me via my personal email address:

Email: wangkuang888@yahoo.com.hk

Once I hear from you, I immediately will provide you with further information on logistics of having these funds moved.

Sincerely,
Mr. Wang Kuang Hsiang

Not sure what exactly the proposal is, or what I would need to do, but it sounds like there is a lot of money involved...

A Familial Way...

Just spoke to my Dad about his recent hospital tests. "It's okay" he said, "it's sorted"... Move along, nothing to see here... so like me...

Getting There...

It has been 1 month and 5 days since our offer was accepted on the new house. It appears that everything is nearly complete, and we now need to start looking at dates, assuming our buyer has everything in order: the solicitor is just checking that. It is Easter next weekend: could we really have packed, sorted everything and moved by then? It would be good...

Polar Bears....

Snow Patrol last Wednesday (11th March) ... spent too much of the show thinking about work. But the songs that stood out where the last few: the last of the main set was superb (Open Your Eyes?), with the band playing in front of a projection of the tops of buildings as someone travelled through an indeterminate city...

And the first three of the encore were fantastic: the last songs on the "A Hundred Million Suns" album collectively named The Lightning Strike. The first the band played behind a massive sheet with a psychedelic display which continued behind the band after the sheet had dropped and the music continued...

I love seeing live music, but throw in some excellent visuals, and I'm really happy...

Management Speak...

An interesting article here that talks about the rubbish that is management speak... I could write more, but having been a team leader for about a year, I may just incriminate myself...

Find Any Film....

This is a web site I have been looking for:

http://www.findanyfilm.com/search

It allows you to find a cinema based on what film you want to see, not see a film based on what cinema you want to go to: important when your local multiplex is not showing the film you really want to see...

Party like its 1234567890...

Brilliant!

Depth of Field...

After trying to take photos of half the family this morning, complete with kids who wouldn't sit still, I thought I'd better check up on my knowledge of Depth of Field settings: if I had got the correct DOF/ aperture, the speed and ISO settings could have been set better.

So, I now know that I should have used the A-DEP setting my Canon, and I have found a nifty bit of software for a Java mobile phone that calculates DOF, courtesy of www.curved-light.net. It is something I have wanted to put together for a while but not got round to learn enough Java to write it. And it gives a good indication of what should (and shouldn't) be in focus.

Finally, a couple of other sites well worth noting are http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html which has an excellent online DOF calculator, and http://www.outsight.com/hyperfocal.html#math which has a calculator and as much information and equations as you will probably ever need.

I guess I should have done all this checking before I took the photos, but still I thought they turned out pretty well...

Internet Broken...

Like this article: Google: 'Human error' brings internet chaos for millions.

I noticed that you couldn't link through from Google for a short while yesterday, and I really love the fact that it was all down to a dodgy '/' character. We've all done it: a missing forward slash or a semi colon and everything breaks. It is just that most of us don't break the most used search engine in the world. Now that is something for your CV...

Slumdog Millionaire...

Is not the "feel good film of the year" or whatever it is they are claiming it to be on the posters. It is much better than that: a finely crafted fable (to quote Mark Kermode), with fantastic acting, sounds and visuals. And with subject matter including poverty, theft, prostitution, torture and murder, it is a lot darker than the tag line suggests.

It deserves all the accolades it is getting at the moment, and is miles better than 'No Country for Old Men' and 'There Will Be Blood" that somehow managed to win Oscars last year, in this humble critic's opinion...

The Incompetence of Banks...

I'm not talking about the credit crunch, but you can easily see how it happened with this level of incompetence...

So I opened a joint web saver account with Halifax as we already have a joint current account with them, but it was opened with W's maiden name instead of her married name (and I must admit to a sneaking suspicion that this was my fault) and £150 was taken from our current account to open it.

To access the account, we both had to agree the terms and conditions, but W couldn't do that as the account wasn't in her name. I tried telephoning their helpline to change W's name but they said they needed to see a marriage certificate. I already tried taking our marriage certificate to the Halifax branch, but they said W needed to be there in person for them to change it.

So I have just spent 32 minutes on the phone to their online helpline trying to close the account and get our £150 back.

But here is where it got weird. They couldn't close the account until the Terms and Conditions were approved; W couldn't agree to the terms and conditions until her name was changed. I argued what happened if we didn't agree to the T&Cs and just wanted to close the account. They said (again) to close the account, we would both have to agree the T&Cs. I said what if we got divorced tomorrow and W didn't want to agree the T&Cs on a joint account. They said we would have to go into a branch with evidence of the marital difficulties (honestly they did) and then it would be up to the discretion of the branch.

They asked a senior colleague who agreed with all that had been said. I asked to speak to him. They refused. I asked to speak to the duty manager. They put me on hold...

And I was finally put through to customer services who said they would change the name on W's account so the T&Cs could be agreed so we could access the account and close it. Now why could they have not done that 30 minutes ago!!

I was angry but trying really hard not to be, so the only retort I managed to make was 'Good. Goodbye', which is a shame really...

I really, really want to change banks now, but the hassle you have to go through...

Corporate Videos...

Fantastic corporate video here from BAE SYSTEMS in 2000 that I remember from my time with the company. Makes me proud to be an engineer, though I can't help thinking that it does glamorise military hardware a little...

Viva La Puppets...

Another fantastic video from Coldplay. Inspired and funny. Although I have to say I prefer the instrumental only version...

Mr President...

Great inauguration speech from new President Obama, full of great imagery, great phrases and (obviously) fantastically well narrated. It is genuinely exciting time even as a non-American,  as lets face it, the choice of US president affects the world...

I liked the way he described the days we live in:

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.

It just underlines the difficult times we live in, and whilst I think he will be very much more than capable in his new job, I don't envy his position. All new jobs start with a bit of nervous anticipation, but becoming US President at this point in time, well I think he'd be right to be just a little nervous...

And I liked the imagery he deployed when talking about normal people:

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the fire-fighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

I'm not generally a fan of public speeches and the like, but I have to say, I liked this one...

Browser Wars...

I've decided to forgo my allegiance with IE7. It is good and well featured, but increasingly seems to freeze and sometimes crash on my Vista installation.

I use Firefox at work, which is great especially the password manager and the Add-ons that are available. But aesthetically, I've never preferred it.

So, for the moment I've decided to move to Google Chrome. It is very fast and has good separation between browser windows (one crashes the whole lot doesn't). It also has a nice clean interface, and I like the integrated address and search bar.

The only thing it does lack is an RSS reader. I prefer a downloadable on rather than a desktop interface, so for the moment I am using FeedReader, which is similarly clean of interface and very straight forward.

Then again, when IE8 comes along, perhaps I'll have to look again...

Once...

Superb film. Great music. Perfect ending. Excellent...

What a Difference a Year Makes...

01-01-08: New Zealand

01-01-09: Home

and in between, got married, went to France, went to Thailand, started a new job... It was good.