Vodex's LiveJournal

Wordpress 2.8 and vodex.net

2009-06-16T21:04:26Z

Recently, Wordpress 2.8 was released. This, & other events, prompted me to take a loot at vodex.net, as it's been largely abandoned for some time... imagine my delight to discover the Wordpress install wasn't even working anymore for some reason; the Livejournal post import was broken, I couldn't log in.. it was a mess. The old version, kept behind to enable custom modifications to integrate with Livejournal / the main site / various PHP applications, didn't help. (Security hole? I'd had the forethought to use a hidden path for Wordpress itself)

I use a lot more social media now, & have largely abandoned Livejournal, along with a lot of other people. (They could have been facebook, you know; shame they don't expose enough data to Google to let me find that very LJ post by someone on that topic). Anyway, I'm working on converting the entire site to Wordpress's considerably improved feature set, including various plugins for FriendFeed, Google Reader, etc. (I especially like the All-New Livejournal Importer for Wordpress, which is a much better job than WP's original LJ import script, or my own LJ import script ... except I don't want to duplicate posts on the site, I want to link to them. Might use it for a private LJ backup tool, though).

So, watch this space. Or rather, that space...

Mozy Backup in Ubuntu via VirtualBox

2009-04-29T20:15:25Z

Well, it's been a while snce I posted here. But this *is* my blog, so what better place than...

A couple of months back I switched to Ubuntu from Windows full time. (The main hard drive seemed about to fail, got a new HDD, made the formal Ubuntu switch, and found it was Windows support for the drive that was bad, the drive was fine.)

I was using a paid account at Mozy for backup (after a burglary in 2007 & losing six months of stuff, online can't be stolen or lost in fires etc.). But there is no Ubuntu support for it.

I do have a minial Windows installation, but don't want to switch to it just to perform backups. So eventually, I got it running under a VirtualBox Windows installation, but it's not straightforward, so time for documentation.

The irony is, I'm not using it anymore, as it hangs for hours for no clear reason, with glitches (google around for more info; at $5/month I was willing to put up with them), but most importantly, it kept resetting the computer it was assigned to (you can only be assigned to one computer at a time), leaving me with no other option, even after tech support, but to start the backup process again.

I'm now using Crashplan , which is much more reliable, has a native Ubuntu version, and have just cut my losses with the remainder of my paid plan time.

Anyway, here we go:

Setup VirtualBox with an XP installation as normal.
Install Mozy with the latest version (1.12+) as the previous version didn't work under a VM (I know, if you're reading this you're probably running a version later still, but just in case...)
You now need Mozy to cope with the virtualized network. Under the Guest machine's settings, under Network, set the Adapter Type to Intel Pro/100 T Server. Set 'Attached To' to 'Host Interface'. Using NAT blocks certain Mozy functions; I don't know why the particaulr network adaptor is required.
As for the data you're backing up, they'll be on your system's hard drives, not the virtual Windows partition, right? They are also linux's ext3 disk format, not Windows NTFS.
Set them up as native hard disks inside the Windows guest to back them up. Using VirtualBox's guest additions to network share your hardrives doesn't work; Mozy has to access them directly.
I followed http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=662018 & http://blarts.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/how-to-run-virtualbox-using-a-physical-partition-using-ubuntu-feisty-fawn/, to create .vmdk files that VirtualBox can present as hard drivers to the Windows guest..
You''ll have to install IFS For Windows for your Windows guest to read Linux's ext3 format. This is by far the easiest step.
You may notice that you aren't meant to mount the drives in Ubuntu & the guest at the same time to prevent write issues. I ignored this, as you are only using the drives for reading under Windows. Unmount the ext3 drives, boot Windows, mount the drives again, use in both; no-one noticed a thing :)
Using Mozy, select content in your drives to backup as normal.

And that's pretty much it. As I said above, though, I got fed up waiting for Mozy to spend hours chugging through my 30Gb of backups, only to 'forget' and have to start again. YMMV!

Waxy Dogheads

2008-07-04T13:54:20Z

Waxy Dogheads. That's all I'm sayin'.

Music Online sites (by Alexander Street Press) now publically viewable

2008-01-31T08:01:39Z

Recently At Work, we upgraded the platform running our next-generation music products.

One of the new features is having parts of a product be publically viewable to the world at large (not to mention search engines) - mostly the home page & browsing.

So here they are. Needless to say, not only am I very proud to be part of what we're doing, I'm also pleased that I can now easily show these to people :)

Click on the link/image to browse each product. If you encounter a login page when seeing certain content, then you/your organization needs to be a paying customer...

Classical Scores Library

400,000 pages of the most important classical scores and manuscripts.

World Music

50,000 tracks that delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. (This is the product with albums like "English Drinking Songs", credits like "Unknown Camel Driver", etc.)

African American Music Reference

50,000 pages that offers the first comprehensive coverage of many forms of black American musical expression.
American Song

50,000 tracks that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past.

Classical Music Reference Library ('Baker')

More than 30,000 pages of essential reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online

The first comprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples.

Mailmaker

2007-09-16T17:46:12Z

I've added a few things in MailMaker, the spoof Daily Mail generator:

option to create a Daily Express. It's not a perfect match; when I have some more time, I'll refactor so you can use the Express font/layout. And do The Sun as well.

made meaningful 'alt text' to the images

created an RSS feed of latest covers

and - bit warily - added some extra images, including, of course, Madeleine McCann. Not sure it might turn out a good idea (for hopefully obvious reasons of taste, hence the delay), but like Diana, what Mail/Express cover is complete without some?

Flat Reference

2007-05-11T10:13:02Z

For our new flat, our employers have been asked to give a reference.

Here's mine. Paul likes to brighten up people's days, so instead of a boring form letter:

Danielle,

I've received a letter from you this morning regarding our employment of John Field.

John Field has held the position of Senior Developer with us for nearly a year, and has been an exemplary employee - I am sure his excellence in the workplace would surely be reflected in his suitability as a tenant, indeed, I doubt you will find a more reliable, respectable and trustworthy person!

When he is not healing the sick and turning water into wine, he creates software of such beauty it makes grown men weep. It is my intention to see that he is employed by Alexander Street Press for as long as possible.

Hope that answers your questions.

Kind regards,

Paul Dixon
Alexander Street Press

LighterLife Managment Day 10 (Day 123)

2007-05-09T20:39:51Z

Back from LighterLife weigh-in. There are some new flavour packs (banana!!!!) that forgot all about so had no money to get.

Have lost three pounds since last week, despite multiple kebabs and a chinese takeaway.

Feel so much better - the yardstick is the weighin itself, as it was blatantly obvious, bright and alert and breaking down cardboard boxes as opposed to falling asleep on the sofa.

Breaking down boxes? Yes, she had a major delivery today, so took them for packing. Don't want to write about moving as it'll jinx it.
Not only broke down about a dozen, carried them the way back too without trouble despite being almost as big as me. I am feeling better.

I'm not fussed about eating food. Supposedly by this stage I can eat any fish, chicken, cottage cheese, any salad, milk, yoghurt, etc. etc. but it didn't even occur to me to do so.

Really am not bothered and would be happy with the shakes I've been on since January and the occasional chicken/fish for variety. Gave it a chance for my new clean palate, but salad really does nothing for me. ( Much prefer kebabs, cough cough)

She wasn't fussed about me taking vitamin tablets, which I think is what makes me good.

So am not bothered with food and still losing weight and feel good and can eat the odd meat-filled naughtyness without it causing problems. This is more like it!

Just don't someone tell me I could have been on vitamin pills all along...

Lighterlife Day 116 / Managment Day 3

2007-05-02T20:32:49Z

Have been in "management" for three days, where I start to eat food (a very limited subset at first). Have felt much, much, so much better, with more energy and much more motivation compared to how I was. Or maybe it's the vitamin supplements helping and the Beltane weather.

There is a Management Book, but they haven't finished the men's one yet, so I have to go with the women's one, which is rather patronising (lots of pictures of models on mountain tops and 'making a plane journey' analogies). It turns out the women's stuff is much more thoroughly put together than the men's stuff, which is miles butter than the stuff back when started in general. Also have officially confirmed that I'm the only man in her groups to have lasted more than a few weeks, let alone going to Management.

Not doing the counselling/mental exercises - never got to do them in the male groups and they seem similar to general CBT stuff anyway.

Day One: (Monday 30 April 2007): Smoked haddock strips. Was amazing.

Day Two: amazing levels of energy, and real funny taste in mouth like metallic sticker glue. Was out after work looking at flats with Lisa and everything, which haven't done on months. Morale very high. Peppered Quorn Steaks, thought they were a bit bland and very spicy, but apparently they smelt delicious.

Day Three: same amazing energy levels, spring in step, the difference is impossible. Went into work an hour early, went viewing flats in evening.
Evening: have weigh-in, but by this point had run out of gas and was knackered again. Have lost 2.6 pounds since Sunday, despite putting maybe a pound of food in, that's still my intestines somewhere. Am 16 stone 6 pounds.

Went to get food to eat, and those months of not having to plan or worry about food hit hard. Couldn't find anything suitable, was very tired & grumpy, shops full of ch**s. Result: kebab and chips. Oh so much for lean protein, salad and balsamic vinegar. Ah well.

As you may have gathered, we're moving. Oh the things that happen if you don't do LJ in a few days!

Sustainable London

2007-04-14T14:12:31Z

Have just been to the Sustainable London exhibition from New London Architecture. It was fascinating stuff, recommend it, but it closes on the 28th. One of those situations where "those in charge" are getting smart people to tackle an issue over and above the call of duty, without fanfare, and knowing full well the general public'll hear little about it (beyond occasional tabloid whinging).

Random facts:

The ecological footprint of London alone is twice the size of the UK.

Temperatures in city centre are up to 4 degrees higher than in the suburbs.

All new developments must generate 10% of energy needs on site - 20% soon.

The congestion charge has dropped particulate pollution by 15%.

'The Mayor' and his office are effectively going to force large businesses to be climate-responsible by hook or by crook, and has the political capital to do it. That's going to be fun.

They also have a funky 3D map of inner London, which brings home how close everything is & how little I have taken part in London "as a place to live". It can take an hour to travel stuff that clearly would be walkable in a few minutes if everything wasn't in the way.

And lastly (& the reason I started this post!) the Building Centre where this is at has showrooms by Generic Building Companies - types of roof felt, Norwegian sliding doors, the sort of stuff that bored you silly as a child when you parents dragged you round them.

Still boring, but look! These guys are so proud of their toilet seats, they advertise them as if Leonardo da Vinci designed them himself!

Welwyn North Wander

2007-04-07T08:42:03Z

Yesterday, took advantage of my morning energy, & trains running as a normal friday, to go to Welwyn North. Why? Because every weekday, the train passed over the Welwyn Viaduct, over a picturesque landscape of fields, horses, streams, trees, etc. Wanted to go and check it out, but without the hour travel time on weekends. It was very nice, peaceful and naturally well-balanced - the viaduct looms over everything but also melds in with the landscape really nicely (compare this victorian effort with, say, Twyford Down). Came back after a couple of hours exhausted but happy, and did little else for rest of the day.

By coincidence, Google launched My Google Maps (yet more mirroring of the physical world in some mist-shrouded hard drive in California) so instead of just adding the photos to flickr, wanted to create a "personalised, annotated, customised map using Google Maps" of it, to much "fifth level techie" ribaldry from Lisa.

I use Picasa for organising photos, which is also Google, so thought it would be a case of geotagging the pictures in Google Earth & slapping them online, right?

Well, all Picasa users know it doesn't touch the photos, it stores your actions on them (e.g. rotating etc.) on a seperate file. But when when you add geotags, it modifies the picture directly. But doesn't change the last modified date of the file. Hmm. Nor does Windows or Paint Shop Pro seem to display geo tags in file information. So cue 10 minutes of "how does it know it's geotagged?" headscratching.

Nor does flickr recognise geotags unless you tell it to at http://www.flickr.com/account/geo/exif . And there's no way to tell Google My Maps "take these photos & work with them". Even from Picasa. And lastly, Google's pictures of Hertfordshire are rather poor, so all my geotags are out & I ended up re-doing them in flickr anyway, which is now attached to non-primary data And Is Bad.

So in summary: this is the aborted "needs more features" Google Map, and this is the flickr set, with nice map & everything. It's uncommon to see google playing catch-up these days.

CSS Sibling Selector Hack for Internet Explorer

2007-04-06T07:01:10Z

Time for a dev post!

At the end of a major product launch for our first release of SHMU - the first product on the funky new Music Online product platform.

Usually when dealing with Internet Explorer limitations, there's either a standard hack approach, or a solution can be readily found online (or it's just plain impossible). I couldn't readily find either for the below, so was seized by the desire to write it up.

When you have two adjacent divs, the first one of which may or may not be there (sidebar), and the second needs to be moved to suit (main content), CSS2 allows a pure CSS solution with sibling selectors:

/*if first element preceeds second, apply rule to second element*/
#layout_sidebar+#layout_main_content {
   margin-left:10em;
}

(Incidentally, I didn't know about these until my line manager (phrase seems so formal!) Paul pointed it out; turns out my 3 year old Visibone reference omits them...)

Predictably, IE's response to sibling selectors is "que?". Didn't want to go back to conditional code generating the markup. So use IE-only expressions:

/*IE hack - have margin if sidebar exists*/

#layout_main_content {
   margin-left:expression(document.getElementById('layout_sidebar')==null?"0em":"10em" );
}

/*override the above for child*/

#content_inner
{
    margin-left:auto;
}

Footnote: IE7 is meant to support sibling selectors, but they apparently left them out after all. What-ever.

http://twitterfeed.com/

2007-04-03T18:42:06Z

A short time back I set up a cron-triggered PHP script to tweet new LJ posts on twitter, noting it wasn't the best solution. Well, it didn't take long for a dedicated solution to come along - http://twitterfeed.com/ - and it even supports OpenID.

Firefox Extensions Roundup

2007-03-21T12:27:42Z

What's the name of that bloke on telly who says stuff like "Today, I am mostly..."? Think it's in comedy.

Anyway, Today, I Am Mostly Using these extensions on my home Firefox, now putting them on at work as They Seem To Be Useful.

Aging Tabs

Makes unused tabs fade with age and highlights the selected tab.

Google Tag CloudMaker

Generates tagcloud from Google search results. Uses GreaseMonkey.

Google has put skins on Google Homepage. My workflow is more "50 tabs open for days at a time" so I don't find self using it, but it's still good. Do like how widgets are increasingly interoperable between the web, your desktop, etc. (Err... this isn't really Firefox. Oh well.)

I've also been using Firebug for development, but it makes me a bit killy as editing CSS is very fiddly, stuff often doesn't seem to take, and it's prone to wiping Firefox out on a whim. Finding self still using Web Developer .

Twitter Community - twittertweeters

2007-03-17T09:40:15Z

Yes! I have created a Twitter LJ community.

twittertweeters

Test of Livejournal to Twitter Script

2007-03-17T08:58:45Z

Yes, I seem to have fully caught the twitter bug.

I've made use of Paul Stamatiou's RSS to Twitter script to automatically ~~pimp for technology's sake~~ announce new Livejournal posts on twitter. It'll have to run as a cron job for now, unless I can find a way for Livejournal to ping whenever a post is made.

New Clothes & Twitter

2007-03-15T19:06:40Z

Today I bought some new trousers. I'm a 36" waist, down from 44". I'm also wearing a Mankind t-shirt I haven't worn in eight years. Sweet.

I'm also using Twitter more and more. Very useful (and addictive). It's mushrooming fast - Flickr/Youtube fast - it's gonna be the Next Big Thing - a cross between blogging, IMs, and texting. Microblogs (or 'tumblelogs') have been tried before, but this is the first good implementation, where you can be alerted by text (us poor slobs in the UK get international text charges though).

What Twitter does, in a simple and brilliant way, is to merge a number of interesting trends in social software usage—personal blogging, lightweight presence indicators, and IM status messages—into a fascinating blend of ephemerality and permanence, public and private.

From the site:

Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing. For some friends you might want instant mobile updates—for others, you can just check the web. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.

It's great for informal communication of 'more than' a text to someone and 'less than' a blog post (which often have to feel 'proper' and formal, blogs have lost all spontaneity). Every nano-post is to answer "what are you doing?", also usable for updates, a sort of status broadcast, or even a humanized ping.

Yet another case of a new innovative way of using the net to communicate that seemingly comes from nowhere. It'll be very interesting to use it as it develops and matures.

OpenID & Technorati

2007-03-14T09:31:10Z

Woohoo! I've just gone to Technorati, found out that old addresses for blogs and stuff were out of date, and claimed my canonical LJ address - using OpenID! It took longer to type this than to do it. And first real use of OpenID, too.

heh, it said it'd been last updated 573 days ago. That's very not right.

Sorry, spod post.

information-revolution.org

2007-03-14T08:42:00Z

Thought I'd quickly write about http://www.information-revolution.org/, the viral-marketed site seen on the tube, trains, and now the Houses of Parliament.

It's branded as if it's some kind of grassroots techie/politics movement similar to Indymedia or freeourdata, but after a while you notice there's no clear content, the comments reveal they're a marketing company funded by other search engines, and... how much do Tube adverts cost? It seems to be some sort of anti-Google astroturf smear campaign that doesn't even have the balls to come out and say so, preferring marketing speak like "Clearly we’ve hit on an issue that resonates with so many."

Le sigh. There's a lot of disappointment about.

Captain America meets the Daily Mail journalist

2007-03-08T11:35:38Z

Hurray, another spring day! Leaving work is mild & the perfect shade of deep blue this time of year, with scudding clouds and flocks of birds and everything.

It's said that a good test of an information source is how accurate it is on things you know about. So here's an article about the ~~publicity stunt~~ shock events in Captain America In this morning's METRO. If you're into comics, you'll already know about it, and vice versa, so won't spoil it, even though it was only announced yesterday.

Cap, iconic superhero second only to Superman, is assassinated. But that's not what concerns me.

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=40258&in_page_id=7

Only a few paragraphs long (yet somehow taking up nearly an entire print page), the article has at least a dozen errors. And we're not just talking obscure, spoddy, errors, but stuff as blatant as a caption 'at the moment he was shot'... to a picture of him fighting in World War II, sixty years ago.

Or how about this? 'Yet he was killed by an unknown sniper as he left a courtroom.' In the comic, he's wounded as he approaches a courthouse. The sniper, a well-known supervillain, is caught a few pages later. And Cap would have been fine, if someone else hadn't shot him a lot more with a handgun a bit later.

I know it is 'just about a comic', but it's revealing: imagine this was an article about, say, terrorism arrests. Or climate change. Or...

Sometimes I feel I'm overly cynical towards my attitude to 'the media'. And then something like this comes along.

Chris Lightfoot

2007-03-06T19:07:54Z

Chris Lightfoot has died. You probably haven't heard of him, but the world is less now & there are eulogies all over the place.

Why? Because he was a genius. A interdisciplinary visionary. And he put it to a lot of use. He was only 28 yet was behind unique and groundbreaking combinations of technology, democracy, and politics. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ and http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ are the best-known examples, but there are many, many others. EDIT: he was behind the Downing Street petitions site too.

http://www.mysociety.org/2007/03/05/rip-chris-lightfoot-1978-to-2007/

So perhaps the sort of work for which Chris will be be most remembered is his wonderfully individualistic, virtuoso forays into scholastic areas in which he had no formal training. He wandered into differing disciplines, made a mark, and wandered on again like a giant that had no idea he’d just trodden on a village.

http://www.no2id.net/news/newsblog/?p=547
His intellectual honesty and keen appreciation of human dignity informed all that he did, and it is no overstatement to say that the whole UK political arena and IT community will suffer by his loss.

But this is the blog post that first made me aware of him:

http://www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/wwwitter/20050130-you_cannot_hope_to_bribe_or_twist.html
Statistical analysis of public data re: how tabloid's immigration coverage affects public perception. Like a wandering giant. He was awesome.

So, lunar eclipse

2007-03-04T11:43:12Z

They closed Finsbury Park. I'm not an expert but I've seen it open at 4am sometimes, what gives?
So, forced to stand in a side street instead. Could barely see it what with all the street glare so only managed about five minutes.

On the way back into the flat, got harassed by a 'beggar' yet again (quotes because they clearly aren't beggars, just wandering scammers), but this time after I'd opened the front door, walked through, as was about to close it. After about five seconds of "I have no money on me" (true; I'd left my wallet indoors in case I got mugged in the park), I realised he was in a very good position to charge in, take my keys from my hand, and burgle the flat (presumably knocking me out cold first). So shut the door in his face whilst he was still raving about needing 20p for something or other. It was scary. Half expected him to be pounding on the door this morning...

Tube updates via the interweb

2007-03-03T09:34:22Z

The Prologue: Twitter is some sort of hot new blogging variant that - I was about to say "is the new MySpace" but it's not like that at all. More like micro-blogging. It had better fucking not get like MySpace if it knows what's good for it.

Anyway, Tom Morris has done the decent thing and piped Underground updates from the depths of the TFL site into a Twitter account. Never get caught out again!

http://www.londonist.com/archives/2007/03/tube_20_or_tube.php is a Londonist article on it.

It also has RSS like a good little web site (e.g. Piccadilly: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/788488.rss ) so you don't need a Twitter account to use them.

Personally, I've slapped them all into Google Reader, and when On The Move will point my phone at http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/01311175945761996337/label/tube

Huzzah for spoddery!

Ah yes, and my account is at http://twitter.com/Vodex ...

LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT

2007-03-03T08:24:40Z

Don't forget, pagans/science types/Jungians everywhere;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6411991.stm

Skywatchers eagerly awaiting Saturday's total lunar eclipse say that the spectacle could be the "best in years".

The eclipse begins at 2018 GMT, with the Moon totally immersed in the shadow of the Earth between 2244 and 2358 GMT.

I freely admit have no idea if it has any significance, but a) it almost certainly does, and b) I don't care :)

Lighter Life, Day Fifty

2007-02-26T08:19:54Z

Weight creeps slowly downward.

LighterLife weight loss as of Feb 25 2007

Lost four pounds last week, despite having tins of tuna and trying not to walk about. Feel terrible. Slept most of weekend and didn't go out, again. Is it worth it? Think it is; people can see the effect week-on-week and for first time since starting this,not just loose clothes and stuff but actually feel slimmer. If I lose six pound this week, it'd be a total of four stone in two months.

Tired though. Will arrange doctor's appointment.

last.fm

2007-02-23T21:20:23Z

I've discovered last.fm. My [profile is at http://www.last.fm/user/Vodex/ . The ability to not only recognise, but even index, the obscure crap I listen to, and then come out with recommendations base on other people's listening patterns, is amazing.

I mean, I know all about collaborative filtering and all, but to see something like this , and then this, is amazing. The power of the network is amazing. It sounds a bit sad, but I can't wait until it has learnt enough about me to find people with the same music tastes & work out a personalised playlist, and all that.

EDIT: blimey, The most obscure thing I could find, and it's not only had 2,422 plays, it suggests half-a-dozen similar tracks. Impressive.