menu.

I was getting the above error message when I recently tried to set up and try out Windows Live Writer to let me publish to a blog from my desktop without logging into the Admin section of the site. I was felled at the first hurdle when, after entering my b2evolution blog’s details, I was presented with a message informing me that:

The server reported an error with the following URL:

http://www.blog-domain.com/b2evo-path/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php

403 Forbidden

Thinking it might be a problem with b2evolution, I tried with a WordPress blog. A different message appeared, both on this blog and another:

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Finally I can have events from my Outlook calendar in work sync with my Thunderbird calendar (enabled using the Lightning plugin) automatically. It’s wonderful… or at least it nearly is.

How It Works

I read some time back of a plugin that allows you to sync your Thunderbird/Lightning calendar (or Sunbird if you prefer to use Mozilla’s calendar in a standalone application) with your Google calendar, which I’m sure is useful for some people, but not me. I’ve never used a Google calendar really. However that memory proved useful when I heard that a Google have released a utility to allow you to sync your Google calendar with your Outlook calendar. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this…

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My phone, a Nokia N73, came on an O2 contract but I’ve switched to Orange. Unfortunately that means that when I press the voicemail button the phone dials 901 (O2′s number).
I couldn’t figure out what the Orange voicemail number was which was a bit of a pain. Luckily I found it quickly.

A few minutes googling revealed it to be 123. This seems to work for Pay As You Go and contract customers alike.

I’ve just added a list of 24 Jack Bauer Facts to the jokes section of my web site (the first update in a while). Highlights include:

• When Kim Bauer lost her virginity, Jack found it and put it back.
• Once, someone tried to tell Jack Bauer a “knock knock” joke. Jack Bauer found out who was there, who they worked for, and where the god damned bomb was.
• The city of Los Angeles once named a street after Jack Bauer in gratitude for his saving the city several times, but they had to rename it after people kept dying when they tried to cross the street. No one crosses Jack Bauer and lives.

If you like them check out the full list. If not, I don’t know what to tell you. Go watch 24.

Yes, shameless promotion I know, but I recently purchased a 3 year old Astra so my beloved Escort is up for grabs. It’s in good working order and has only 73k miles on the clock (fuck all for a 1996 car). I think £595 is a very good price for this motor.

Feel free to make any enquiries through this blog or give me a call (numbers on the LoadzaCars page).

I have my Acer Aspire laptop dual booting Ubuntu Linux with Windows XP but, despite being sympathetic to Linux and interested in learning more about it, I don’t use Ubuntu very often.  One major reason for this was the amount of time it takes to boot up.  Over time I noticed an error message and looking at it began to suspect that this error was partially responsible for the long load times.

There are differences between boot sector and its backup
… [sequences of numbers]…
Not automatically fixing this

According to this forum thread, it seems like this error may have been let loose when I changed the grub configuration to make the OS names a bit more user-friendly and have the system stop booting into Ubuntu by default (the girlfriend isn’t converted yet and even I preferred Windows for regular use). This seems to affect the MBR, which doesn’t overwrite the backup and therefore causes the above problem.

SimonU at UbuntuForums had the same problem on his Ubuntu laptop and posted a solution which I decided to borrow.

sudo cp /etc/init.d/checkfs.sh /etc/init.d/checkfsbackup.sh
sudo rm /etc/init.d/checkfs.sh

I had already hit the button to restart my PC when I thought to myself “I really should have looked at what it was doing  and made sure it was doing it to the right hard drive for my system” and started worrying that I may have just made my machine unbootable. Luckily all was ok and my laptop now boots into Ubuntu in a fraction of the time it had taken before. If I could only figure out how to stop Ubuntu overheating the laptop so much and causing the fan to run at full pelt, I’d maybe use it on a regular basis.

If that doesn’t work for you another thread talks about skipping the file system check (fsck) on FAT32 drives as an alternative solution.

I need a NAS or a Home Server, I just can’t decide which.

I currently have a desktop PC in a bedroom, a laptop which spends most of its time in the living room, and a Buffalo LinkTheater which sits under the TV (also in the living room). I have a lot of files on the desktop PC that I watch, through the LinkTheater, on my TV. One of the problems with this is that it requires the PC to be switched on when I want to watch something, but a bigger problem is that the hard drives are filling up. For extra storage, the natural option seemed to be a LinkStation Live NAS which would store the files and allow the LinkTheater to stream them, but then I read about the efforts made by other nerds to turn the LinkStation into a web server. How great would it be if I could turn it into a testing server for the web sites I design?

After a little more reading it seems that this is not an easy thing to do with the LinkStation Live. The OpenLink hacked LinkStation firmware allows installation of extra software, but from what I can tell doesn’t seem to be compatible with ARM-based boxes like the LinkStation Live, only with older LinkStations (at least the lack of installation instructions suggest this). I’m now investigating the possibility of getting a cheap Home Server instead, though I have some constraints: it must be small, so I can stick it in a corner out of the way, and it must be silent. Basically I want to be able to completely forget about it when I’m not using it.

Obviously since a 500GB NAS (the LinkStation) can be obtained for under £150, I don’t want to spend too much more than that on the server – which all but rules out a Windows Home Server based system. That’s not a problem, I want to work on my Linux knowledge anyway. I’ve spent part of today searching on Google and ebay for terms like “xpc x100“, “shuttle pc“, “sff pc” (small form factor) and “mini pc“. Finally I came to “ITX PC“; Mini-ITX (along with Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX) being a standard form factor for motherboards that use low amounts of power and are therefore suitable for use as the basis of fanless (and therefore quiet) systems. I should have remembered this from a project I did last year in university involving in-car PCs.

So far I’ve come across a couple of UK shops so far, none of which have managed to give exactly what I wanted. Mini-ITX.com, as well as news and reviews, have bundles that basically amount to DIY kits for the type of system I’m looking for. The Intel Bundle comes close but I’d need to add a new hard drive as 80GB would not last any time at all. Another UK company, LinITX, offer build-your-own systems based on their skeleton systems, but the ones in my price range (like their Home Server bundle) are too big, at normal PC size, and don’t include hard drives. ITX-Warehouse just looked too dear; their only self-build barebones system was over £300.

Sorry if anyone was looking for a conclusion to this post, but I’m still looking for now. I may look further into hacking the LinkStation into a web server or I may just take the (relatively) easy option of getting a home server.

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with my ISP. Their speeds are pretty good (I think, anyway) and their culture (if you like) or their philosophy, is great. I like the wee touches like their community forum and blog and I love their geographic (01) phone numbers for support. I’ve never had to use them so I don’t know how good they are once you’re actually on the phone, but at least you don’t have to worry about the cost. 0p a minute works fine for me.

I know I always mention it, largely because it’s my only real complaint, but I do hate the peak-time usage limit of 8GB per month*. I understand bandwidth costs them money and I know I can get more for a relatively low cost either through additional bandwidth bundles, pay-as-you-go or a £5 package upgrade, but I don’t really fancy any of those options. It would seem I’m just expecting too much, but it does leave me feeling content or happy with the product, rather than delighted. I’ve suggested extending the unmetered/unlimited usage ‘off-peak’ period (currently midnight to 8am) through to 10am or midday, but it doesn’t seem likely (cost reasons, apparently).

I blame the big providers for spreading the myth of unlimited usage (while growing ever tighter in their so-called “fair use” policies). They’ve clearly set my expectations too high because Plus.net have come out top in a customer satisfaction survey of the UK’s top 10 ISPs; it’s always nice to have your choices reaffirmed. Bigger names like AOL, Orange, Tesco and BT didn’t come off quite so well.

I have also sent a strongly worded complaint to Broadband Choices regarding their unforgivable (they’re supposedly a consumer site after all) use of the headline figures provided by these companies (like BT’s infernal £8.95/month bullshit) instead of the actual charges. I find that behaviour scummy, but unsurprising, when the companies trying to sell you their own product do it (caveat emptor and all that) but for a self-proclaimed consumer site to take them at face value (possibly something to do with their affiliate/referral fees?) is a disgrace.

* Since the time of writing the peak time usage limit has increased to 15GB – which is much better. I still do the majority of downloading at night, but don’t need to worry if I decide to lie in at the weekend and let it run til noon or have to download the odd large file during the day.