f-log

just another web log
1 Jun 2002 12:24 -- seti total : 1268 -- dnet : 44,793
So what's new?
Went to see a gig at the Water Rats in London and saw these guys http://www.monkey-music.co.uk , very professional and the drummer was particually good :)
Tried to rebuild the firewall and all of a sudden started getting out of disk space errors.
I had not allowed a separate partition for /usr so all that data was going onto my tiny /root 100mb partition, DOH !!
It is currently in the process trying again this time with /usr getting 4gb (should be enough )
Bought some sun glasses for the USA trip coming up soon
Watched the Anime DVD I got with Harry Potter called X (yep just a single letter, X), very good, I love the way I can watch the DVD in Japanese with English subtitles instead of having to endure dodgy dubbing (although I have not heard the dubbed track so I do not know if it is dodgy)
Found out why I had so much trouble install http://www.debian.org last time, the floppy disk images are 2.2.19 and my CD is 2.2.18, it could not find any such directory, that was for drivers, programs install fine.
I got my FREE CD from http://www.eongenius.com containing my JVMU applet and 1000 or so others !!
I had a look on their website but there is no price. I was very please when they explicitly asked my permission to include JVMU in the BEST JAVA APPLETS COLLECTION 1000 even though my license is "what the hell" do what you like with it !!
As limited internet access DNET has been not allowed to do much, I am running seti at work so that should keep my stats up.

26 May 2002 21:16 -- seti total : 1268 -- dnet : 44,793
Installed the 20gb into my win98 system, would not work until I set the jumpers to Master/Slave. I thought we were beyond jumpers and everything worked via cable select, oh well.
Scandisk is currently checking it over but all looks good.
Got the camera to take movies and play with some other functions. The coolest option I have found so far is you can customize all the sounds and the start up screen to any image/sound you like (format and size constraints must be adhered to ).
I forgot to tell you but I specifically bought a 128mb compact flash card with the camera as it only came with a 16mb and the sales man convinced me to purchase an extra battery, which seemed like a good idea.
But upon opening the box I find not only the standard battery and 16mb compact flash card (still wrapped) but another battery and 16mb card in the camera. It appears it is a demo model (though the LCD protective film was still on), the flash had some pics of people in the shop !!
So I have a 128mb + 2x16mb compact flash cards (oh and also a 2mb from my 100 year old digital camera :) not to mention three batteries ;)
Playing Wreckless again this morning DAMN that game is fun, forget the amazing graphics and the phenomenal physics engine, this game is so much FUN !!
If they had include a two play option and the ability to destroy the lamp posts, this game would be number one. As it is I have not seen it advertised once :(
I am guessing you can not destroy the lamp posts because otherwise it may get to dark ;)
But really, I have never seen anything had looks this good that PLAYS this good !!
Scandisk is on 45,161 of 1,221,334 hmmmm, could take a while :)

25 May 2002 13:17 --
Hi again, it is finally the weekend and I am sitting on the firewall case getting ready for the HDD install.
I finally saw AOTC last night, very cool movie. Much better than Episode One, although I never thought Episode One was as bad as everyone said, just good movie as opposed to a great movie.
Bought a Canon PowerShot S30 from http://www.askdirect.co.uk (actually visited their shop in Tottnem court road), very nice bit of kit, but I do need to read the manual to understand all the options :)
I should be off to France on company business sometime this week to show off all the work I have been doing to Clients, not sure when though, it was supposed to be Friday and then Monday .....
After some fiddling it would appear that the old P200 can not take a 20gb drive as it recognizes it as an 8gb and then fails to boot !!
Why is nothing ever easy ?? So I will have to back up as much as possible via floppy, oh joy !!

25 May 2002 11:56 --
I was going to write in here something along the lines of "Still got 20gb drive sitting on desk as the Linux box never needs rebooting" but something happened at 12:00 lunchtime.
The power went off again, most likely road works digging through the wrong cable but I had not got around to installing the firewall script into the boot sequence(cos the system is never rebooted or down).
So when the power come on the system booted and up'd the network cards DHCP'd me an ip address and sat there taking abuse.
The var/log/messages are VERY empty except for an odd rpc.statd entry and alot of bad/crtl characters.
There is a very good chance I have been root'd, needless to say the first thing I did was pull the network connection out the back of the machine.
All I can say is DRAT, it has taken me so long to this machine this far.
The two options I have are scrap it and start from scratch or ignore the fact it has probability been compromised and go on as usual hoping it does not start connecting to unexpected hosts.
Problem at this point is any file could have been replaced so any action I take i.e. run the firewall script could still allow neferious behavior, only I will be total unaware !!
I want swear loudly !!

19 May 2002 21:19 -- seti total : 1268 -- dnet : 44,793
Its later than is was but now it is now !!
http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/misc/lastday/ checkout the weirdos at my last place of work and chuckle at the embarashing photo from my visit to Alton Towers.
That is all

14 May 2002 210:5 -- seti total : 1253 -- dnet : 44,667
I was given a free digital camera by my father who had been given it by my brother after he won it in some kind of company raffle.
Why was it being passed around, well it is missing the serial digital connection cable but has a Smart Media card, my new laptop has a Smart Media card reader built in.
So I plug said card into said drive and it will not read it, hmmm.
Downloaded latest drivers from http://www.toshiba.co.uk (.com was useless) still will not read it.
After much too-ing and fro-ing it turns out that the Jenoptik JD11 digital camera formats the card explicitly so it can not be used with any other device!
Needless to say it went in the bin and I ended up with a free 2mb Smart Media Card.
Bloody marvelous, any how, busy busy busy.

12 May 2002 11:29 -- seti total : -- dnet : 44,065
So I re-attached the fan to the new hole in the side of my case and all seemed well.
To allow quick maintenance in case of problems I left the case out from under the desk and just about then disaster struck !!
Being a hot day I removed my t-shirt and as I flicked it from my wrists I realized its destination BANG CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK !!
Quickly shut down the machine to find the clothing had entered the fan (through the big hole in the side of the case) and snapped off one of the fan fins and in its unbalanced state it was shaking all over the place !!
So I went in search of a replacement to find instead a http://www.coolermaster.com Heat Pipe CPU Cooler that seemed to be very highly rated.
My original CPU fan had been the cheapest at the time but I did not think that it could not do the job, how wrong could I have been?
Unclipped the old CPU fan and after applying the supplied thermal grease clipped on the new (very easy after I used the saw blade on my leatherman) and powered her up.
Success !! it is keeping the CPU under 40 degrees something I could never do with the last one (lucky if I kept it under 55 degrees and thats with the big (now broken) case fan!).
I finished watching the Lord of the Rings Animated Movie, it ends just as Frodo is about the meet the spider lady and Pipen and CO have just meet Tree Beard.
Quite impressive, but shows its age, large parts are real film painted over, very good to get the movements of troops and horses correct.
Off the get the replacement t-shirts from http://www.cafepress.com from my Dad, hopefully they will be correct this time!
Have to say Cafepress were very good, no fuss, just sent out a replacement order !!
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/store.aspx?storeid=jumpstation,jumpstation_,jumpstation3

10 May 2002 190:7 -- seti total : -- dnet : 44,065
Opps, forgot to post anything yesterday, oh well today was my last day at http://www.microwarehouse.co.uk wooohoooo.
Took the Xbox in for everyone to play but forgot the remote for my telly so could not switch to scart until we had wrestled one from the swanky Sony branded board room.
People wanted to see Halo, but REALLY wanted to have a go on Wreckless !!
Wreckless is ideal pick up and play fun, only a pity it was not two player (and I did not have another pad yet ).
It was sad to say goodbye to all the people I have been working with over the last three years but as one chapter ends another begins and I am looking forward to my new job where I will be working with an old microwarehouse colleague.
Can you notice my spelling has not improved :) , maybe one day I will script a spell checker on this flog.
Oh, and hi to Pete who is in India at the mo, all the best mate !!!
I am now off to the cinema to see About A Boy starring Hugh Grant, with my wife (no, she is not co starring in it !!)
Here are some links so you do not get bored;
http://www.g-news.ch/articles/nhp200nc/ now thats a case mod !!
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/09/11/1437229&mode=thread telnet into a dreamcast, fake :(
http://www.dcslinks.com/misc/mm_mariominicar.htm need these !!
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 test your PC openness to the internet
http://www.qedata.se/e_js_n-cdrom.htm how fast can a CDROM spin b4 it explodes, with images !!
http://www.system16.com/ A great Arcade / Sega site

8 May 2002 21:48 -- seti total : 1237 -- dnet : 42,449
So I got my laptop, but have not had much time to play with it, have been pondering the sudden heat issue with my main win98 system.
When I originally built the win98 machine I found that the main icicle heatsink and fan was not enough to keep the temperature below 65 degrees (at which point the system hangs).
This has all happened since the power cut, hmmmmm
Any how, to fix the initial issue I purchased two fans one large and one small.
I drilled some 110 holes in the side of the case and mounted the large fan over the CPU heatsink combo and all was well.
I knew the 110 holes did not allow that much air through but as things worked fine I let them be.
So my duty was clear cut a hole to allow more air, and that is what I have been doing, only it would appear my case is made of reinforce tank armour so it has taken a time and it does not look very neat (in any light).
I have been watching the animated Lord of the Rings DVD that I got for Xmas.
This laptop has everything;

  • 1ghz pIII

  • 256mb

  • 30gig

  • DVD/CD/RW

  • Smart Media reader

  • 15tft screen

  • USB/firewire/PCMCIA

  • Internal win modem and 10/100 Lan

Not a bad spec if ever I heard one.
I also have a 20gig HDD that I will fit to the Linux system sometime in the future.
Last day at my old job on Friday, it will be sad to say goodbye to everyone, but maybe its time to move on and I am looking forward to my new job.
Note to self: fan sucking air from the CPU was ineffective but Blowing onto has lowered the temp to something more reasonable.

8 May 2002 21:25 -- seti total : 1237 -- dnet : 42,449
Completed Halo, took 30h apx, which is pretty good for game, did I mention I completed Halflife blueshift?
Very VERY short game took me just a couple of days (evenings), very disappointing.
Any how, now Halo is out of the way I have started playing Wreckless Yakazo Missions.
One word describes this game "attention to detail" OK, so thats three words, but this games is graphically AMAZING ! and plays pretty good too :)
** We interrupt this flog to bring you an emergency announcement: the in self built win98 power house is getting hot, to hot, and crashing, i have powered it down for maintenance **
That is all .....

3 May 2002 15:12 -- seti total : 1237 -- dnet : 42,449
Got turffed off Halo, appears I am on the second to last level !!
Only it wigged out on me, I must have missed a check point as there are no more enemies and the grav-lift does not work :(
Found the walk through on http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox/game/32488.html and I can not see what I did wrong, restarted level and found it works fine, only have not got the to lift yet, having been thrown off :(
Firewall is working very well, only allows port 80/443 for HTTP/S requests and runs fine on the win98 box, also lets http://www.distributed.net do its thang on port 2064 and the DNS (port 53) I got working yesterday.
I also setup the firewall to ignore NetBios broadcasts (when I say ignore I mean DENY) so my firewall log does not fill up with entries, this still allows this laptop and the win98 system to communicate via SMB shares as normal.
Saw "Panic Room" with Jodie Foster last night (no, I went with my wife, Jodie Foster was starring in it), very good film, very tense and full of suspense.
Can you work out the ending though !? I am sure I have the solution, email if you want me to share.
Iknowwhathappenedattheendofthefilm@jumpstation.co.uk
Still need to add NNTP and FTP to the firewall today.
I was trying to get the latest http://www.debian.org CD images via http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/ (using windoze version) but I think the mirrors I used are out of date :(
Maybe adding FTP to the firewall will help !!

2 May 2002 19:54 --
Still Halo'ing, stopped for five mins just to try Wreckless.
Very nice to look at, seems to be an easy pick up and play arcade'y type game.
Replays are stunning, better than burnout on the PS2 and you appear to be able to plow through everything bar the most stubborn buildings :)
I have crow bared myself off Halo so I can get the DNS working on Linux.
It works !! named seems to set itself up very reasonably and I just had to check
/var/log/messages
and open up port 53 to my internal network, just need to make sure the win98 box works!!
I will post my firewalling script as soon as everything is settled.

2 May 20020 5:49 -- seti total : 1237 -- dnet : 42,449
H.A.L.O. to.. ad.di.ct.i.v.e, mu.s.t. wr.ite. fl.og, m.u.st w.rite .. No really, the only reason I am typing this is that Sarah is hogging the TV at the mo.
I have to say the attention to detail in that game is astounding ! Walk up to a tree (or anything else in the game) it will be as detailed as ever, not a pixel in sight !!
The story is pretty tight too, I will not spoil the fun but, it gets very tense later on in the 'library'.
So I have got a new job (with no rest in between) so my redundancy money must be spent !!
Well the XBOX was the first thing, but today I bought Wreckless (have not had a chance to try it yet) and on the companies internal purchase thingy I order a Tosh laptop for a thousand pounds off list price (it had been returned) and a cheap 20gig HDD for the Linux machine !!
Right, now can I prise Sarah of the TV so I can continue saving mankind !?!
Oh, I have to mention, some one found one of my old Java applets(which in itself is a feat) that I do not remember linking to/from.
Not only did they find it they liked it too and wanted to see the source code, well it was written in 1998 plus code wants to be free so no problem.
http://www.lightfantastic.demon.co.uk/robd/javalottery/Java%20Lottery.html

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