People who are continuously late are actually just more optimistic. Simply put, they’re fundamentally hopeful.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/07/why-im-always-late.html
(I’m often late) (I love the waitbutwhy website, it’s inspiring)
Often late == Fundamentally hopeful ?
Using a Linksys WRT54G to extend a wireless network from a Apple Time Capsule
For Christmas I got mum a Apple Time Capsule primarily because I wanted to ensure her computer was backed up without her having to do anything pro-actively. However, I was also hoping that I could use it to extend her wireless network range (especially considering it’s damn expensive if it’s just a NAS).
Currently her wifi is provided by a old Linksys WRT54G (hardware version 2.0). I plugged in the Time Capsule and used Airport Utilities to set it up. I couldn’t get “extend wireless network” to work. I tried all different settings, I tried with a password and without any wifi secrity, I tried updating the firmware of the Linksys WRT54G (from v2.02.7 to 4.20.8). Whatever I tried it just showed up with a horrible little red error bubble that shows “extend wireless network” failure. It could join the network fine, and it could access the internet, but it just wouldn’t extend the network. Eventually, I gave up, guessing that the Time Capsule is just plainly incompatible with the WRT54G. I Googled it and apparently you can only extend a wireless network if the network is already based on Apple products (I should have guessed!).
> Sorry, but Apple designed the “Extend” feature to only work among Apple devices.
> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4067753
So I wondered if you can do it the other way round. Make the Time Capsule the primary wifi base station and use the WRT54G as the repeater. This kind of made more sense anyway because the Time Capsule is N but the WRT54G is only G, so it would probably be better if the master router is the faster, longer range option.
- First I swapped the WRT54G firmware for one from DD-WRT which is a brilliant open-source project that adds extra functionality to routers. I followed this guide: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G_v2.0.
- Once I had DD-WRT working, I followed these instructions to turn it into a “repeater bridge”: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge.
It worked. The WRT54G doesn’t need anything except a power outlet to do the repeating. This basically saves £79 (the cost of a “Airport Express”, the Apple wifi extender).
Save the Park!
Park land and inner city greenery is sacred. That’s why I can’t believe it needs defending. But it does because the Council want to build on the Park behind Great Knollys Street (Victoria Park).
If you live in or near Reading, please object online before 4/Jul/12. The Planning Application Reference number is: 12/00905/REG3 and the link is http://planninghome.reading.gov.uk .
The Planning Application Plan
Most of the green in this photo would be lost to a new building
A panoramic photo of the whole park, The left part would be lost. (this photo makes the park look much much bigger than it really is)
This is a view from Google maps (that also shows where we live).
I’m pretty upset by this. If I’m honest the main reason is that it’ll really kill our house price but it’s more than that, I really feel greenery needs to be kept green. On a nice day the park is packed all day. It’d be a real shame to lose it.
Ubuntu is starting to fail me more and more often
My Uncle mentioned that the audio on this aging PC wasn’t working ever since he got it “repaired”. It was running Windows XP and we were initially unable to find the right audio drivers online so I thought I’d give Ubuntu a go on it. Sure enough, the audio worked fine in Ubuntu. However, with the machine running Ubuntu, it was incredibly slow and unstable. It crashed every 5 mins with either a white screen of death or a screen that looked like a jail with vertical bars going across it. My uncle said:
Yeah, this ooobuntooo thing is ok but it keeps freezing like a zoo and I have to switch the computer off and on again
I tried Linux Mint 12 instead of Ubuntu and got the same instablility. I was left with no choice other than to leave with Windows set as the default grub option. Oh Ubuntu, you have failed me – You are slower and less stable than Windows XP, on at least 1 machine. In fact Windows was a better experience in terms of speed and stability by a significant distance! Sad days. Ubuntu, please step-up. I love you, but only because you are better than the competition.
Another problem that left a sour taste in my month was that my Uncles old monitor didn’t like grub and switched off after the initial bios splash screen, kept switched off during grub and then switched back on when the OS actually started booting. Luckily I guessed than Ubuntu is usually at the top of the menu and Windows at the bottom so was able to choose the right OS even though nothing was on the screen. but having grub invisible is not a good user experience! And it make it tricky to change the default to Windows (I had to guess the GRUB_DEFAULT value in /etc/default/grub).
Raw food supper
Kix and I are on a health drive (because of my weight issues and because of Chloes herniated disk) so Chloe cooked prepared a recipe from a friend of ours who only eats raw food!
This is raw Satay style butternut noodles and raw brownies:
It was delightful. The “noodles” were tasty and surprisingly filling. You would think it tasted like eating a salad, but the recipe cleverly makes it taste more like a real meal. And the brownies are very rich, probably richer than the real thing. They taste like nakd bars.
I don’t think it’s easy to make – I was on a two and a half hour phone call and she was still working away at it when I had finished! It uses a weird machine that looks like torture equipment (a spiralizer).
Media keyboard (Logitech K400)
This keyboard with integrated mouse only came out this week in the UK and I’ve no idea why it took so long because I would have thought anyone with a media center TV were crying out for this form factor.
I highly recommend it as a remote control for a MythTV box. It’s a good small size (it’s smaller than it looks in the picture), the integrated trackpad is responsive and large and has both mouse buttons. There’s zero config needed for Linux (at least in Arch Linux). The range is good. There’s no useless extra media buttons that no-one uses. In short, it’s perfect.
Fixing WiFi on a Dell XPS L702x Laptop in Ubuntu 11.04
I have a Dell XPS L702x Laptop and the wireless is dodgy in Ubuntu 11.04. By Dodgy I mean it drops out and doesn’t automatically connect very often especially when a Ethernet cable is unplugged. It seems the problem is that Ubuntu doesn’t get on well with wireless-N (perhaps the driver is buggy?). I fixed it by disabling wireless N (but leaving G working):
First check to see that b, g and n is enabled:
> iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"WKIXNTOM"
we need:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"WKIXNTOM"
To disable Wireless N, create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf and put the disable incarnation in it:
> sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf
add:
options iwlagn 11n_disable50=1 11n_disable=1
Restart the computer to finish.
I agree this isn’t a ideal solution (to say the least!), but it’ll do for now.
Update after 2 months: Wireless has been reliable and steady since making the above change.
Update (15/Oct/11): This “hack” is a disaster for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, it causes Wireless to fail to load. Be sure to remove the /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf file when upgrading to Ubuntu 11.10. I found this issue the hard way: askubuntu question.
WordPress failing to email me about new blog comments
Did you know that WordPress sends you emails when you get a new blog comment? I didn’t – because it has never worked for me. But once I knew it was supposed to email me I looked into it and found a fix.
Setup: My setup is running WordPress.org on a Ubuntu 9.04 box called Butterfree with sendmail installed.
The problem was that the Return-Path header in my outgoing mails wasn’t valid which caused some mail recipients to reject the mail, while other less picky ones, accepted the mail fine (e.g. gmail). The Return-Path header that sendmail was using looked something like this:
Return-Path: <www-data@butterfree.bitvolution.com>
I found this by changing the admin email from the one that didn’t work to a gmail one, then posting a test comment on one of my posts. Then I waited for the email to arrive in gmail and selected “show original” from the gmail interface. A quicker way is to check the entries in /var/log/mail.log.
In order to fix the issue, I configured the return path in emails sent from WordPress (i.e. PHP) to something different using the -f parameter for sendmail:
sudo emacs /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Find the sendmail_path and uncomment it and add the -f flag:
; -f will set the "return-path" headers.
sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -i -t -f sendmail@bitvolution.com
Doing this solved this issue so I now get email about new comments.
My fix feels a bit of a hack. I would be interested in how to solve this problem the right way, so let me know if you can give me some advice. For example, perhaps I should have done something with my DNS settings for my domain?
Where I spent almost all my time
Because I’m lucky enough to work from home 90% of the time, I spent almost all my life here:
When it’s not work, it’s catching up with the news, checking my calendar, writing my journal, playing games, shopping, writing my todo lists, looking at photos, watching youtube, etc, etc.
The good news is that being tied to a computer is now changing – I’m finding the more casual surfing tasks which are usually leisure based rather than productivity based are now more pleasant to do on the iPad on the sofa or in bed.
Do you live to work or work to live? Luckily the question is moot for me because my work is programming and programming (or more accurately, problem solving) is my calling. From “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt (which I haven’t read):
Most people approach their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career, or a calling.
- If you see your work as a job, you do it only for the money, you look at the clock frequently while dreaming about the weekend ahead, and you probably pursue hobbies, which satisfy your effectance needs more thoroughly than does your work.
- If you see your work as a career, you have larger goals of advancement, promotion, and prestige.
- If you see your work as a calling, however, you find your work intrinsically fulfilling you are not doing it to achieve something else. You see your work as contributing to the greater good or as playing a role in some larger enterprise the worth of which seems obvious to you. You have frequent experiences of flow during the work day, and you neither look forward to quitting time nor feel the desire to shout, Thank God its Friday! You would continue to work, perhaps even without pay, if you suddenly became very wealthy.
If I suddenly became very wealthy, I would definitely continue to program.
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP Low Profile CPU Cooler
I bought a new CPU cooler (“Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP Low Profile CPU Cooler“) for our media center PC but unfortunately it didn’t fit on the motherboard (ASUS P5N7A-VM) even though it is the correct CPU socket type (“Intel socket 775“).
It wouldn’t sit on the CPU properly because some capacitors on the motherboard got in the way of the cooling fins. It was also very hard to to install the motherboard anchors that the fan screws into. Be sure to avoid this fan on this motherboard.
Halo Reach
Xbox 360, FPS, 9/10
High quality, fun game.
There was a short space scene which I think they pulled off quite well, if just to show-case the incredible space-scene graphics.
I don’t like the continuing trend of sad endings 🙁 .
Not much success with our veg
We tried growing a few pieces of veg this year. We tried carrots, potatoes, beans, salad, mushrooms and strawberries. We failed to get anything decent except perhaps the potatoes (we got about 10kgs).
I was most excited about the carrots but we ended up with vegetarian veal:
Facebook Friend feed via RSS
If you use RSS and you have grouped your Facebook friends into lists, you can subscribe to all activity in a given Friend List using the following URL:
http://www.new.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=your_facebook_id&key=your_friends_list_key&format=rss20
Where
- your_facebook_id – To find this, go to your facebook notifications page and copy the link called “Via RSS“. The URL will be something like
http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=668921524&viewer=668921524&key=1c9c72f322&format=rss20and “668921524” is the id you need. - your_friends_list_key – To find this, go to your facebook Friends List page and click on the list. The URL will be something like
http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=fl_447510731524and “447510731524” is the key you need.
This is useful if you want to make sure you don’t miss any activity of a particular group of friends – I don’t go to Facebook every day but I do go to a RSS reader every day. It is also useful if you want to filter out and ignore a particular group.
I don’t know how people manage Facebook without using this feature!
Artistic music video
If you have a interest in art, you may enjoy this genius music video called “70 Million” by Hold Your Horses. See how many renditions you can recognise:
Answers are at flavorwire.com. My favourite renditions are The Scream (Eduard Munch), Portrait of Dora Maar (Pablo Picasso) and Las Meninas (Diego Velzquez). Thanks goes to Rodrigo for sharing this song with me.
Bonus music video for “best marching band”:
Session sharing in PHP – The easy way
I used to think that a hard part of scaling a website from one webserver to two webservers was sharing the sessions between the machines to keep the users logged in whichever machine they were served by. I was pleasantly surprized that it is possible to accomplish sharing sessions between two servers by changing only 5 lines in the php.ini file (the 2 biggies are session.save_handler and session.save_path).
Here is a solution for RHEL 5.5: