f-log

just another web log

30 Sep 2006 19:12
dnet server is down
Still no baby, but as you can see I have updated the style-sheet to show off code segments better.
The S!BRAS project is experiencing a few wrinkles at the moment so I redirect your interest to http://thedailywtf.com/
I come across some WTFs in my job like future proof XML that has a tag called <CSVDATA> that holds all the data in a massive CSV.
Digg this
26 Sep 2006 22:21
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You know its a bad day when you have to run
locate sanity
That was to find the gconf-sanity-check-2 program that maybe the cause of my system hanging again !
This time when the video signal went I noticed that the hard drive was quite happy even though the keyboard was unresponsive.
I ran rm -fr ~/.gconf*
rm -fr /tmp/gconf*
and that seems to have fixed things for the mo...
Digg this
24 Sep 2006 12:55
3177631 keys/sec
In other "notes to me"
/dev/sda1 winXP - when did I last boot to this ?
/dev/sda2 boot [40mb]
/dev/sda3 swap
/dev/sda4 /
and if anyone has seen Alex could they get him to give us a ring because we are still waiting ...
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24 Sep 2006 12:33
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CRASH !
I was working on th future S!BRAS project when the signal went dead to the monitor and the sound stopped working, could not switch to a terminal and the CAPS LOCK light did not come on when pressed.
I have had my old Linux system hang before but never crash like this, and it did not reboot or exhibit any other action/inaction.
I thought it must have over heated but the heat sensors in the BIOS when I rebooted should a very comfortable 35C.
The system came up fine, but I wondered if I had an out of date kernel and that had caused the problem, I am very bad at remembering to update my kernel, or more to the point finding the time when the machine can go down.
No problem the gentoo genkernel makes rebuilding the kernel a breeze, or thats what I remembered ..
Ran genkernel --bootloader=grub all
but it did not give me the option to configure the kernel and included all sorts of things the caused me problems. So I ran make menuconfig separately made my changes and ran genkernel again, seemed fine so rebooted.
Lots of kernel related bits were wrong, wrong modules, stuff I had explicitly excluded etc.
Found that genkernel uses its own .config file and ignores mine, found the option to use my config file and ran again, error can not install to BOOTDIR, drat I must have missed something out of my .config.
Long story short the /boot partition was full of my old kernels and there was no room for the new one. So I created a backup folder and moved /boot to it, reran genkernel and got errors /boot/grub/grub.conf was missing, no problem moved grub folder from my back up ran genkernel for the millionth time and with no errors rebooted.
Got the Grub shell and nothing else, after having fun with Ubuntu on my test machine got some instructions to boot Knoppix and find the right parameters for Grub.
in the Grub shell used "setup (hd0)" rebooted and all worked fine-ish.
A few recompiles later I had my system back ...
Notes to self.
Ensure /boot is devoid of very old kernels.
run genkernel with --menuconfig and --bootloader=grub all
set the arch to AMD 64
set all the painful file systems to NOT install not even modules !
remove FORCEDETH from 10/100 network devices
compile in SKGE in 1000 network devices
turn on SOUND SUPPORT but turn off ALSA and OSS
Add in Network support/network options/network packet filtering (replaces ipchains)
-- core / xtables and as much as possible as modules
-- ip / as much as possible as modules
after compile (takes about 12 mins)
run module-rebuild rebuild
reboot, enjoy !
Digg this
21 Sep 2006 19:50
3176762 keys/sec
After the fun I had with wifi on the Zaurus I decided to get a new wifi card off ebay
Got a cracking deal on Linksys WCF54G but even though its been out well over a year there do not seem tobe any drivers that support it, not even a little :(
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19 Sep 2006 20:30
3172736 keys/sec
Ok, click one of the tags and you will be presented with some clever JavaScript/web2.0/AJAX
Each time I add a post an XML file is updated and then uploaded along with the flog.html, when you click on a tag the page it take you to loads that XML and then displays it in reverse chronological order.
The page itself needs some styling and it will look better when there are more tags and do not think thats the last flog new look update ...
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19 Sep 2006 16:25
3172736 keys/sec
Watched the anime DVD "Memories", bit weird, created by the same guy who did Akira it is three 40min short stories, totally unconnected (ish).
The first one is very powerful and cinematic, but ultimately not really good just OK. The second one is up beat fun and very entertaining, just what I like.
The last episode is called "Cannon Fodder" and is plain arts and boring, its just a unforfilling story.
All in all an odd bunch, if you buy this DVD it's to watch "Stink Bomb", the second episode.
Tagging is being revised ...
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18 Sep 2006 22:36
3174166 keys/sec
Tagging should be working soon...
Let me just run a few more tests.
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18 Sep 2006 21:24
3174166 keys/sec
I have to be really careful, Burnout 3 is addictive and fun, but it is really screwing up my hand !
There are two main modes of play (lots of variations) racing and crashing. When racing you do not want to crash and in crash mode, well you get the idea. When you hit something like a bus coming the other way at full speed your car deforms and crunches. At this point you can use "after touch" which slows the world down and allows you tweak which direction your wreck is traveling.
You can not do a lot but sometimes you can cause the car to hit something else or best yet get in the way of other drivers. This can be very handy as it awards you more boost and racks up loads of burnout points, which in turn unlock vehicles and tracks.

Digg this
18 Sep 2006 20:44
3174166 keys/sec
this is pretty amazing http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/teddy/teddy/teddy.html
I suggest watching the video first or you might get a bit lost.
It creates 3D objects from simple 2D strokes but with a 'sketched' 'hand drawn' result, wow!
Digg this
17 Sep 2006 20:55
3173010 keys/sec
design test 007
path error that time ...
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17 Sep 2006 20:54
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design test 006
Should have kept my mouth shut, nothing obvious went wrong that you could see but I am still having to try that again ...
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17 Sep 2006 20:53
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design test 005
these design tests are going surprisingly well, except the first one, obviously.
Digg this
17 Sep 2006 20:21
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design test 004
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17 Sep 2006 20:11
3173010 keys/sec
design test 003
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16 Sep 2006 20:51
3173580 keys/sec
design test 002
Digg this
16 Sep 2006 20:43
design test 001
16 Sep 2006 18:18 -- 3173580 keys/sec
kilt1 kilt2Here you go me in a skirt, kilt, whatever it was very breezy. I was going for smart look in the standing, which I find hard due to the fact the smartest I normally get is a clean pair of jeans to go with my thinkgeek t-shirts. If you are interested, I am wearing the "black watch" kilt as I am not part of any Scottish clan unlike my Father in-law and Brother in-law who wore the Graham clan colours. The hired get up consisted of the kilt a belt (that should not be worn except in the evening) the sporran (including chains), a small knife (that was glued into its sheath), socks, shoes, little green flags for the tops of the socks, shirt, waste coat, jacket and bow tie.

16 Sep 2006 14:14 -- 3173580 keys/sec
Skirt images should be available later today, you lucky people !
The new flog design is ready to be integrated into my collection of automation process that build the flog. Its not a huge change but it will look a bit cleaner.
I after having had a few issues with the Xbox edition of Conkers Bad Fur Day and having to return the last copy available I managed to pick it up second hand.
My first thought was to buy a memory card, get to the point before it crashed and copy the save to the memory card incase it screwed up again.
Bought a memory card off ebay, played through the last but one level (again) in about 8 hours (non continuous), went the memory management section and ... no option to copy the save :(
I then played the level and IT WORKED !! I got to the final last level and have now completed the game !
I have got to say the overall experience is very worth while, lots of different types of game play and loads and loads of funny/clever cut scenes, it made me really want to complete it just to see the ending, which was funny because it jokes about the game crashing.
I have also been playing Burnout 3 as one of my cheap Xbox games, great fun whizzing around and crashing into things, but it is bring back some of my RSI due to the way I squeeze the controller ... all things in moderation.

14 Sep 2006 17:42 -- 3170399 keys/sec
I had a really good time at the LUG meeting last night http://www.herts.lug.org.uk/ we had three members of http://www.openstreetmap.org/ which is a very interesting project mapping the world (although most of the work so far has been the UK).
They arrange mapping weekend breaks and for instance mapped the whole of the Isle of Wight in one weekend with 30 volunteers, but they have also mapped other areas/towns.
They all strongly belive in freedom of information and this alone is worth cause.

7 Sep 2006 21:34 -- 3167446 keys/sec
Last Saturday I spent all day in a skirt, which was a liberating change for me, images soon.
We had an indoor heat pool installed, pity its only a birthing pool that has to go back afterwards, still I did get a chance to laze around in it to day, we have to get one of these permenantly !
I finished reading Steven King's "Dolores Claiborne" which was recommended to me by another Steven King fan and I have to say it was very readable and a very good book, which is a little odd. There is no monsters/fantasy and only a little horror that is not very gory, but well worth a read, shorter than his normal stuff.
I found a good second hand games place and bought a few things:
Rodland for the classic GameBoy, I used to play this a lot on the Amiga, especially good two player.
Metroid Prime Pinball for the DS, comes with a rumble pack that fits in the GBA slot, limited fun, but it was cheap.
There are also three others, but I have not had a chance to play them all.
In other news I have decided to upgrade the ol'flog a bit, expect more interesting design soon.

7 Sep 2006 20:53 -- 3167446 keys/sec
A short delay in posting due to a gcc upgrade, to those who have no idea what gcc is or why it would cause me problems:
gentoo builds every single program/package on a system rather than just copying a binary that fits with your architecture (like most Linux distributions do), gcc is the compiler and when it is upgrade the entire system has to be rebuilt one program at a time.
This rebuild has been going on for days for me, due to minor incompatibilities, Unreal 2004 needing manual intervention and my monitor script taking up all the memory on the machine.
The minor incompatibility was due to the gentoo build system thinking I did not have the Nvidia graphics drivers installed, a quick eselect opengl set nvidia fixed that. The Unreal 2004 issue was because I never got around to setting CD_ROOT (that will teach me!).
Finally I wrote a quick shell script that had three lines, line 1: display monitor, line 2: sleep 60 seconds, line 3: run shell script.
It had been running for at least 72 hours before it slowed the machine down to nothing thats a shell running in a shell 72x60 times, still Linux did not crash and I was able to (eventually) kill the rouge process.

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