f-log

Minor update just to force an update.
Thanks steve!

To make space for other things, I have been backing up my VCDs and then CDs in general due to their natural habit to become unreadable over time.
Back in the way when, long before DVDs I purchased a MPEG decoder card that could play VCDs (video cds) and then set about obtaining every released VCD as quickly as I could as they were already fading from shop shelves.
When I came to back them up I found I had 81 (most were two disk), including such classics as Beverly Hills Cop I,II & III, Cyborg 2 and Crocodie Dundee II.
Some of the slightly better titles on offer include Hackers, Moonraker, Titan AE, Shallow grave, Akira, The Matrix.
The collection takes up 59GIG
After that short exercise *COUGH* *COUGH* I decided to go after the mother load, all the CDs from before 2007, can't be to many ... It would seem I made numerous backups of backups, of backups etc etc...
179 CDs later (where many others were simply excluded due to the lack of value in the content, Debian 2.2 install CDs etc) and I am short another 110GIG
That was after I removed a few blatant duplicates.
In the end only 4 CDs failed to be readable by any drive I could find, not bad percent wise.
The process was executed using rsyncrsync --progress --archive --update /mnt/CDROM /backups/CDs/
Then for the duplicate witch hunt I used #!/bin/bash
cd $1
echo "#!/bin/bash" > mkmd5.sh
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d | grep -v "^\.$" | sed -e "s/\(.*\)/cd \"\1\" ; ls -1R | md5sum > \"..\/\1.umd5\" ; cd ../" >> mkmd5.sh
sh mkmd5.sh
rm mkmd5.sh
cd ..
Which creates a MD5 hash file of the same name as each folder (one per CD) then...find . -name "*.umd5" -exec grep -H . {} \; > allMD5.lst
cat allMD5.lst | sort -t ":" -k 2 > sortedbyMD5.lst
cat sortedbyMD5.lst | cut -d ":" -f 2 | uniq -d > dupsMD5.lst

Picture this ;
You (I) are(am) building a new high end PC for someone. Everything is going great and nothing blew up when you turned the power on (always a good start) but, and there is always a but after installing the OS you find that both of the Sata DVD drives installed claim to have a CD in them ...
Strange to say the least. Both drives report that a CD called bluebirds in it, putting a real CD in either drive works fine, its just when it is empty.
Now, each time you close the empty CD draw Windows (not my choice) auto-runs 'bluebirds' demanding an install.Once installed it should offer some kind of drag and burn functionality, but the PC user (and most people) will never need this, but it can not be uninstalled :(
"But wait" you say I googled and found the removal tool alas the firmware it writes has a hard coded serial number meaning only one drive per machine :(
In fact a part from that little incident the only thing I have had trouble with was the screen savers and that was just a matter of right clicking and choosing install ...
plug topblock

In London there are at least a few places to eat...

http://www.fireandstone.com
New York
Crispy oven-roasted smoked bacon, mozzarella, Fire & Stone's tomato sauce, garlic & rosemary roast potatoes, caramelized onion jam, topped with sour cream & smoked paprika.
Sounds a bit odd (they have more adventurous pizzas) but worked really well, thinking about it makes me go mmmmmmmm.

I need to go back here and sample some of the other goodnessesess especially as they do a great lunch deal.

http://www.myolddutch.com/
Greek - really fresh, recommended
Chicken - basic, nice, do not followup with ice-cream pancake...
Amsterdammer - sweet and sour, I want this again, but am making my way through the rest of the menu first.
Seafood - tasted great
Chicken curry - tasted like an average chicken curry on a pancake, nothing special

I am trying to encourage the entire office to go each and every Monday (due to the "Monday Madness")
Did I mention the pancakes are the size of small mediterranean islands ? mmmmmmmmm

Apparently I am some what responsible for http://www.thenewefficiency.com must be due to my general silverlighting which would have been to have seen as sleeping in the last few months.
busy busy busy, but do not despair I have a number of new ideas brewing, just need the time to implement them ...