Deaconsworld http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk Welcome to my world Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:47:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 en Yet another Fedora 10 cock-up http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/12/18/yet-another-fedora-10-cock-up/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/12/18/yet-another-fedora-10-cock-up/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:47:20 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/?p=110 Oh poor Fedora, don’t worry we still love you, even if you do keep cocking up. It’s been a hard few months for my favourite distro. First we had the security problem with the gpg key for the updates, then we had the evil dbus update which broken F10, and now we’ve got the odd day-of-the-week bug for the UK.

The bug is simple, according to the gnome clock applet our week starts on a Tuesday. Opps, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem to change. Digging around the net, I found some references to locale files in /usr/share/i18n/locales. Although they looked correct, I tried changing them anyway. To absolutly no effect. The answer? To recompile glibc-common! Oh for fucks sake, the bug for this has been opened since Novemeber, should I really have to recompile what is a massive RPM, just for this? Why aren’t these files read at login, or better still, why can’t I used system-config-date to change my preferences.

Anyway for those of you who are interested, you can track the bug on bugzilla or Sourceware.

I’m also rebuilding the glibc-common RPM now, if it works, then I’ll post an updated version when it’s finished

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Testing mail servers http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/11/07/testing-mail-servers/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/11/07/testing-mail-servers/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:27:15 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/?p=108 Back in the good ol’ days of POP3 it was really easy to test a mail server manually you just simply telnet to port 110 issue some 3 command and done! Now that all ISPs support IMAP things are a little more complicated. Here’s my little guide to manually testing POP3, IMAP and SMTP

Testing POP3

POP3 testing is really really simple, here’s an example (The command I entered are in bold):

[adam@desktop ~]$ telnet zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk 110
Trying 10.0.0.1...
Connected to zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Dovecot ready.
user <username>
+OK
pass <password>
+OK Logged in.
list
+OK 185 messages:
1 34718
<snip>
185 20419
.
top 1 0
+OK
Return-path: <someone@example.com>
Envelope-to: <someonelse@example.com>
Delivery-date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:02:43 +0100
Received: from outbound.mse17.exchange.ms ([64.71.238.253])
    by zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-MD5:128)
    (Exim 4.69)
    (envelope-from <someone@example.com>;)
    id 1KrvLE-0001Fq-PT
    for <someonelse@example.com>; Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:02:43 +0100
<snip>
.
quit
+OK Logging out.
Connection closed by foreign host.

Here’s a list of some useful commands and their explanations:

  • user [username] - Sends the username for the connection
  • pass [password] - Sends the password for the connection
  • list - Displays a list of email ID and their sizes.
  • top [id] [length] - Gets the “top” of an e-mail. The ID is from the list command (the first e-mail is always 1). top always gets the headers and then [length] lines e.g. top 1 0 will get just the headers of the first e-mail or top 2 10 will get the headers and the first 10 lines of e-mail 2.
  • retr [id] - Gets the whole of e-mail.
  • dele [id] - Deletes an e-mail
  • quit - closes the connection

Testing IMAP

IMAP is a little more complicated because of folders and because it’s asynchronous. After telnetting to port 143, here’s an example:

[adam@desktop ~]$ telnet zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk 143
Trying 10.0.0.1...
Connected to zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK Dovecot ready.
1 login <username> <password>
1 OK Logged in.
2 select "INBOX"
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft unknown-1 unknown-0 Junk receipt-handled NonJunk $MDNSent)
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft unknown-1 unknown-0 Junk receipt-handled NonJunk $MDNSent \*)] Flags permitted.
* 185 EXISTS
* 0 RECENT
* OK [UNSEEN 183] First unseen.
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 1220688986] UIDs valid
* OK [UIDNEXT 3859] Predicted next UID
2 OK [READ-WRITE] Select completed.
3 FETCH * ALL
* 185 FETCH (FLAGS () INTERNALDATE "07-Nov-2008 09:51:29 +0000"...
3 OK Fetch completed.
4 logout
* BYE Logging out
4 OK Logout completed.
Connection closed by foreign host.

Here you’ll notice the numbers at the start of each line. This technically should be a unique string for each command, the server will reply with the same number. In reality, you can use the same number for each line. As before here’s a list of useful commands you might need:

  • LOGIN “[username]” “[password]“ - sends the username/password
  • SELECT “[folder]“ - Selects the folder to use. I always use INBOX as this should always exist
  • FETCH * ALL - Gets all the heads for the first message
  • LOGOUT - Closes the connection

Testing SMTP

Just for completness here’s a test for SMTP. After telnetting to port 25, try the following:

[adam@desktop ~]$ telnet zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk 25
Trying 10.0.0.1...
Connected to zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk ESMTP Exim 4.69 Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:18:45 +0000
ehlo adam
250-zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk Hello adam [10.0.0.28]
250-SIZE 52428800
250-PIPELINING
250-AUTH LOGIN
250-STARTTLS
250 HELP
mail from: adam@deaconsworld.org.uk
250 OK
rcpt to: adam@deaconsworld.org.uk
250 Accepted
data
354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
Subject: test

test
.
250 OK id=1KyPMm-00078C-9u
quit
221 zippy.deaconsworld.org.uk closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

The above should send a test message, however it’s not exactly RFC2822 complient so don’t be surprised if spam filters drop it.

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More mplayer fun! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/08/06/more-mplayer-fun/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/08/06/more-mplayer-fun/#comments Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:55:53 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/?p=100 This week I have been playing with youtube videos to either extract the sound from the video and converting to MP3 or converting the whole video to mpeg.

I’ve used the same kind of process to convert RealAudio streams to MP3. Firstly download the youtube video. I use the DownloadHelper addon for firefox. It’s really easy to use, you just search for your favourite video then click the button in the toolbar.

Once you’ve got your flv, you should be able to play that through totem/mplayer. If not, you’ll need install the correct gstreamer plugins. If you’re using Fedora, I’d suggest taking a look at MyGuide

OK, let’s say we want to rip the sound out of the file.. Really useful if you want a obsecure song that you can only find on youtube. It’s a two stage process, rip it as a wav then encode it to mp3.

mplayer Pork_and_Beans.flv -ao pcm:file=file.wav -vc dummy -vo null
lame -V Pork_and_Beans.mp3 file.wav --tt "Pork and Beans --ta "Weezer"
rm file.wav

That’s all there is to it!

OK next trick is to convert the flv to a Mpeg. This is slightly tricker and I haven’t had great results playing these on Windows (timing are all screwy)

mencoder Pork_and_Beans.flv -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:acodec=libmp3lame:abitrate=64 -o Pork_and_Beans.avi 2>/dev/null

The /dev/null is to drop the millions of warning messages you get about clipping.

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Wordpress style permalinks http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/08/06/wordpress-style-permalinks/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/08/06/wordpress-style-permalinks/#comments Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:48:44 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/08/06/wordpress-style-permalinks/ Recently I was writing a database driven website, where all the content was within a database and the only real page was index.php.

This is easy enough to do, but of course, you need to tell index.php which page you want so you end up with URL like http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/index.php?PageID=12 or  http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/index.php?PageID=36. Not the most user or SEO friendly. What I really wanted was URL that looked like this:  http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/contact/ or http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/about/

It turns out that it was actually quite simple. The principle behind it is to use a Apache re-write to redirect everything that isn’t a ‘real’ page to index.php but leave the URI available for php to process.

Let’s say you have a database called tblPages that looks like this:

+-----------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field     | Type                    | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| PageID    | int(10) unsigned        | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| Title     | varchar(255)            | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| Content   | text                    | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-----------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Hopefully the table is self explanatory, The PageID is a unique number, Title is going to be the URL and Content is the HTML of the page.

Next you need a rewrite statement, this can either be put in the virtualhost declaration or in an .htaccess file. Again this would look like this:

# Switch the rewrite Engine on
RewriteEngine On
# Set the base correctly
RewriteBase /
# Ignore and don't process any 'real' files or directories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# finally, rewrite everything else as index.php and stop processing
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Next comes the magical bit. Although we can now type our URL in as http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/contact/, Apache will send us to http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/index.php. However, the $_SERVER[REQUEST_URI] will still contain http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/contact/

Next we need to do a bit of work in PHP:

PageID=GetPageID($_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]);

$SQL_GetPageInfo=mysql_query
	("SELECT Title,Content FROM tblPages WHERE PageID=$PageID");
$Details=mysql_fetch_array($SQL_GetPageInfo);

print $Details[Content];

function GetPageID($URI) {
	$PageTitle_array=explode('?', $URI);
	$PageTitle=$PageTitle_array[0];
	$PageTitle=rawurldecode($PageTitle);
	$PageTitle=trim($PageTitle, '/');
	$SQL_GetPageID=mysql_query
		("SELECT PageID from tblPages WHERE Title='$PageTitle'");
	return mysql_result($SQL_GetPageID,0);
}

Again, the code should be pretty self explanatory.

So there you have it. The only things missing are a default page for when some enters http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk and to tidy up the security, but I’ll let you work that one out.

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Getting BIOS information http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/07/01/getting-bios-information/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/07/01/getting-bios-information/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:57:41 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/07/01/getting-bios-information/ I recently needed to get a load of Dell service tags from some remote servers. Dell very nicely provide a ActiveX component for Windows but nothing for Linux. Fortunately we can use dmidecode. Run it as root and it will output loads of hardware info. If you looking for something specific, then you can run it with -s option and provide a keyword such as:

  • bios-vendor
  • bios-version
  • bios-release-date
  • system-manufacturer
  • system-product-name
  • system-version
  • system-serial-number
  • system-uuid
  • baseboard-manufacturer
  • baseboard-product-name
  • baseboard-version
  • baseboard-serial-number
  • baseboard-asset-tag
  • chassis-manufacturer
  • chassis-type
  • chassis-version
  • chassis-serial-number
  • chassis-asset-tag
  • processor-family
  • processor-manufacturer
  • processor-version
  • processor-frequency

Here’s the output of it:

[root@ajd-laptop ~]# dmidecode -s bios-vendor
Dell Inc.
[root@ajd-laptop ~]# dmidecode -s processor-manufacturer
Intel
[root@ajd-laptop ~]# dmidecode -s processor-frequency
1600 MHz
[root@ajd-laptop ~]# dmidecode -s chassis-type
Portable

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The world’s most neglected blog http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/25/the-worlds-most-neglected-blog/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/25/the-worlds-most-neglected-blog/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:24:49 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/25/the-worlds-most-neglected-blog/ I’m planning on entering this blog for “The World’s most neglected blog” Award. I think I’ve got a pretty good chance. My acceptance speech will include the following excuses:

  • I was too busy (True, more to come on that later)
  • Nothing exciting has happened to be recently (Not true - More to come on that soon)
  • I haven’t got anything useful to say (Always true, but it’s never stopped me before!)
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Sun buys MySQL http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/16/sun-buys-mysql/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/16/sun-buys-mysql/#comments Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:03:25 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2008/01/16/sun-buys-mysql/ Didn’t see that one coming. Blog contains details to what this could mean for both companies. May as well be one of the most important takeovers of 2008 already!

read more | digg story

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Wedding Website http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/12/02/wedding-website/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/12/02/wedding-website/#comments Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:12:59 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/12/02/wedding-website/ Wahoo! I finally got around to doing our wedding website. There’s not a lot on it at the moment, but more will come later. Feel free to take a poke around www.joandadamswedding.co.uk.

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Brotherly Love http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/09/12/brotherly-love/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/09/12/brotherly-love/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:31:15 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/09/12/brotherly-love/ mfc7820.pngAs you probably guessed, I love Linux in all it’s distros. OK, maybe I have a small hatred for Ubuntu but that because of the fan boy users thinking they invented everything. Anyway, I also know that all Linux users harbour a dark secret. A secret we’ve tried to keep quite for many years. A secret that if we actually admitted all Windows users would laugh and kick sand in our faces. Well I’m not scared! The secret is…. Linux driver support isn’t as good as Windows. You know that new feedback steering wheel - probably won’t work. That sexy new Laptop card reader - Wouldn’t hold your breath.

We’ve just got a shiny new Brother MFC-7820N printer/copier/fax/coffee maker in the office. Great, I thought, the printing will be fine as it’s postscript but I probably won’t be able to use the scanner or the fax part over the network. I’m OK with that and I don’t want to make a fuss else the M$ boys might get wind of our dirty little secret.

So when it arrived, it was with some trepidation I poking around the Brother website and found a Linux section. CUPS drivers, SANE drivers, LPR fax drivers. Wahoo! Even better when I went to install the printer in cups avahi had already spotted it and installed it. The SANE drivers are supplied as a couple of RPMs and a single line to activate then it works just like any other SANE driver. The fax part isn’t quite as polished, but still works. Absolutely amazing. I really am impressed with Brother. The whole ‘install’ took around 30 seconds.

The best thing about all of this was that when we tried to install everything on Windows, it too about 30 minutes to install and then uses a nasty GUI and tray service.

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Aero = Jessica Simpson http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/07/16/aero-jessica-simpson/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/07/16/aero-jessica-simpson/#comments Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:01:19 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/07/16/aero-jessica-simpson/ Sorry about posting a link to another blog, but this made me smile. Aero is the technological equivalent of Jessica Simpson.

http://vistarapedme.com/2007/07/09/aero-jessica-simpson

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Opera Mini Vs iPhone http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/20/opera-mini-vs-iphone/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/20/opera-mini-vs-iphone/#comments Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:00:05 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/20/opera-mini-vs-iphone/ As my regular reader will know, I love Apple and everything they do. I especially love the iPhone and it’s over priced, over hyped shinyness. I actually do love Opera, it works great on my phone, renders all pages perfectly and is small and quick to use. Oh and it’s free.

I got the following video from their site. I love to see Apple’s propaganda machine working against them :-)


media
[See post to watch Flash video]
Download hi-res ogg version here

Opera 4 is out in beta now so go download a copy!

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nic.im change their whois search http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/01/nicim-change-their-whois-search/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/01/nicim-change-their-whois-search/#comments Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:07:20 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/06/01/nicim-change-their-whois-search/ Probably not the most exciting thing in the world, but I noticed today that nic.im (the Isle of Man registery) has changed the address of their whois looking. If you want to update your jwhois.conf file to use the new URL, replace the current nic.im section with the following:
"www\\.nic\\.im" {
http = "true";
http-method = "GET";
http-action = "/public/whois.mth";
form-element = "domainname";
}

As it’s a web lookup rather than a proper whois server, you will need either elinks or lynx installed. Also you’ll get some extra shit back (like headers and links), but hey you can’t have everything!

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Ban Everything!!!! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/05/22/ban-everything/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/05/22/ban-everything/#comments Tue, 22 May 2007 08:24:32 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/05/22/ban-everything/ Help the UK government ban everything

read more | digg story

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Changing the load order of a webpage http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/23/changing-the-load-order-of-a-webpage/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/23/changing-the-load-order-of-a-webpage/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:38:45 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/23/changing-the-load-order-of-a-webpage/ I had an exciting weekend of writing a wonderful ‘webcast’ system. Although it worked fine over the LAN, I found I had a problem when I uploaded it to the internet. The problem as a little weird. The system work by loading a bunch of images then used a version of 1pixelout’s mp3 flash player to play the audio. The problem I had was that half the images were loading, then the flash started loading. A user would then have to wait until the mp3 had finished playing before the final images were loaded.

I searched high and low on the net to see if there was a magical way to control the loading order. In the end I found this really elegant solution to load the flash as the last item.

In your style sheet, give the style you want to appear last: display: none;Then in the body tag change the display to block using onload:document.getElementById('audio').style.display = 'block';"

I’ve tested this in Firefox and IE on both Linux and Windows and it seem to work perfectly.

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Lovely test data http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/17/lovely-test-data/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/17/lovely-test-data/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:19:07 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/17/lovley-test-data/ I’ve spent most of my weekend thinking up names. Am I having a baby? NO! Do I need a killa handle for my next l33t project? No. Am I thinking of running away and setting up a new life for my self living in a tree? Yes, but that not why.

The reason I’ve been thinking up new names is I’ve been testing my latest, greatest app and needed to fill it with test data. I hate thinking of test names. Normally I end up with bob, bob1, bob2 or my favourite piece of test data “rich is gay”. That’s fine if you just want a few test name, but what if you want say 1000 or 2000 or 10,000. That were Benjamin Keen’s Data Generator comes in. It’s a little script that create random data perfect for shoehorning in to any app you want. It will even output CSV, MySQL, XML, Excel or HTML and best of all it’s GNU

I’ve put a copy at http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/datagenerator/ to try and save him some bandwidth.

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Extreme ASCII Art http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/13/extreme-ascii-art/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/13/extreme-ascii-art/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:32:14 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/04/13/extreme-ascii-art/ LibcacaWhilst procrastinating over yet another dead line, I thought I’d have a play with libcaca, the completely useless yet completely brilliant Colour AsCii Art library. libcaca is a graphics library that output text rather than images. The genius part of it is that you can use it as a video output in mplayer and display all your wonderful HD videos as text!

I always love stuff like this. You can see how much work as gone even though it’s a complete waste of time. It’s a similar idea to NetQoS‘ Network management display which again is great but completely useless. Check that out here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/10/watch-your-network-play-space-invaders/

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whois who? http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/03/08/whois-who/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/03/08/whois-who/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:05:27 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/03/08/whois-who/ Anyone noticed that Verisign have changed their whois server recently (or not so recently)? It’s been bugging me for a while cos when I’m doing whois lookup, all I get is the abbreviated info form like this:

[adam@dyn89 ~]$ whois -n microsoft.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[whois.verisign-grs.com]

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: MICROSOFT.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NS1.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS2.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS3.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS4.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS5.MSFT.NET
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 10-oct-2006
Creation Date: 02-may-1991
Expiration Date: 03-may-2014

Well I finally updated my jwhois.conf to include the following lines in the server-options section

"whois\\.verisign-grs\\.com" {
whois-redirect = ".*Whois Server: \\(.*\\)";
}
Wahoo! now I get useful whois data:

[adam@dyn89 ~]$ whois microsoft.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.opensrs.net]
[Querying whois.opensrs.net]
[whois.opensrs.net]

Registrant:
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US

Domain name: MICROSOFT.COM

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, Domain domains@microsoft.com
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080

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Converting Unix time to Time stamps http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/26/converting-unix-time-to-time-stamps/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/26/converting-unix-time-to-time-stamps/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 11:08:43 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/26/converting-unix-time-to-time-stamps/ I’ve been busy with a lot of time dependant code this week and working in Unix Time (number of seconds since epoch) has been making my brain go a bit squishy. Here a nice little code snippet for converting unixtime to a proper timestamp

perl -e 'print scalar localtime($ARGV[0]),”\n”‘ [unixtime] so: perl -e 'print scalar localtime($ARGV[0]),”\n”‘ 1172160024
Thu Feb 22 16:00:24 2007

If you use this a lot, there’s nothing to stop you putting this in a nice little script, such as:

#!/bin/perl
print scalar localtime($ARGV[0]),”\n”

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Recording RealAudio streams and converting them to MP3 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/01/recording-realaudio-streams-and-converting-them-to-mp3/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/01/recording-realaudio-streams-and-converting-them-to-mp3/#comments Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:09:21 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/02/01/recording-realaudio-streams-and-converting-them-to-mp3/ A friend of mine recently had his 5 minutes of fame of Five Live and asked me to if I could covert the “Listen again” to an mp3 so it could be saved for the good of Humanity. Here how I did it:

  1. Finding the name of the stream can sometime be a bit tricky. If you can get it to play in the stand alone RealPlayer then you can just click on File->Clip properties->Clip source. This will then bizzarely open a webpage. You looking for an address like rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio5/anita_mon.ra. If you can’t open it then it’s a case of looking though the source of the page.
  2. Now you’ve got the address, run the following command:mplayer -noframedrop -dumpfile file.rm -dumpstream rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio5/anita_mon.ra
    This will save the clip as file.rm. Watch out though, this is recorded in real time. So a 3 hour radio show will take… 3 Hours!
  3. Next you need to covert the realmedia file to wav, again mplayer is your friend mplayer file.rm -ao pcm:file=file.wav -vc dummy -vo null
  4. Last stage is to convert from wav to mp3 using lame. I like to hedge my bets and encode it as VBRlame -V file.mp3 file.wav --tt "Title" --ta "author"

You should have have a shiny MP3 file for your troubles.

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More VMWare problems in Fedora http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/22/more-vmware-problems-in-fedora/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/22/more-vmware-problems-in-fedora/#comments Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:13:51 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/22/more-vmware-problems-in-fedora/ Oh another Kernel update another VMWare problem, great. When you upgrade to 2.6.19, you get the following error
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only/userif.c: In function ‘VNetCopyDatagramToUser’:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: ‘CHECKSUM_HW’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: for each function it appears in.)
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only/userif.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.19-1.2895.fc6-i686′
make: *** [vmnet.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmnet-only’
Unable to build the vmnet module.
After a bit of hunting on LWN, I found that CHECKSUM_HW has been remove from 2.6.19 and replaced with CHECKSUM_PARTIAL. Fortunately, Robin Kearney at usefulthings.org.uk has provided a patch.

It’s a little more complicated than the usual fixes, at the patched files are within a tarball, but you should be able to cut and paste from below.

As root:

cd /tmp
wget http://usefulthings.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/vmnet-only-2.6.19.patch
cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
cp vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.orig
tar xf vmnet.tar
patch -p0 < /tmp/vmnet-only-2.6.19.patch
tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
vmware-config.pl -d

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Flash player finally out of beta! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/17/flash-player-finally-out-of-beta/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/17/flash-player-finally-out-of-beta/#comments Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:40:54 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/17/flash-player-finally-out-of-beta/ Flash playerWahoo! Flash player 9 for Linux is finally out of beta.

There’s even a nice RPM version. So ignore my previous instructions and go install now!

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Apple fail to Rock my World http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/10/apple-fail-to-rock-my-world/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/10/apple-fail-to-rock-my-world/#comments Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:25:23 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/10/apple-fail-to-rock-my-world/ IphoneI really wasn’t looking forward to the office this morning. Was it because I’d had hardly any sleep? No - Was it because of that whoshing sound deadlines make as the fly by? No. So why wasn’t I looking forward to the office? Because I knew I’d have to listen to the gushing from the Apple-philes about Steveo’s keynotes speech yesterday.

So Apple have finally revealed the iPhone, probably the worst kept secret in the world!

The specs seem fair enough, 3.5 inch screen, 4-8GB, Quad band, Wi-Fi. A couple of nice functions I like is the accelerometer so as you turn the phone from portrait to landscape the screen also flips and the proximity sensor which locks the phone when you hold it to your ear. So no more excuses that “…my cheek hung up on you!”

The reason it’s not rocking my world is that I’ve seen it all before. The Sony Ericsson Walkman already does a lot of this and more. And more importantly it’s doesn’t cost an absolute arm and leg, which no doubt the iPhone will.

Well done Apple, your shiny new product has already been copied, release and sold cheaper before you’d even announced it!

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Switching off the internal speaker in FC6 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/switching-off-the-internal-speaker-in-fc6/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/switching-off-the-internal-speaker-in-fc6/#comments Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:44:29 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/switching-off-the-internal-speaker-in-fc6/ >/etc/modprobe.conf]]> Fedora Core 6 enables the internal crappy speaker by default. I don’t like this, it makes my sexy machine sound old and cheap. To disable it run the following as root:

modprobe -r pcspkr ; echo "install pcspkr :" >>/etc/modprobe.conf

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FC6 choses i585 rather than i686 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/fc6-choses-i585-rather-than-i686/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/fc6-choses-i585-rather-than-i686/#comments Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:42:06 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2007/01/05/fc6-choses-i585-rather-than-i686/ You might remember I had a bit of a nightmare getting vmware to work on a dual core Intel. In the end it turned out that Fedora had chosen the wrong kernel arch (i586 rather than i686). This morning I was having a poke around the FC6 Common bug list (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/FC6Common) and found the problem. Apparently it’s bug in Anaconda, the Fedora installer. Here’s what they say:

Anaconda installing the wrong architecture kernel in some systems. cpuspeed is not working for the same reason. This does not affect out of box functionality much but if you are compiling third party kernel drivers you might run into this on x86 architecture. x86_64 and PPC systems are not affected. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=211941. You can bypass this bug in a new installation by specifying “linux i686″ in the installation boot prompt.

An updates.img is available for this issue http://people.redhat.com/pnasrat/211941-updates.img. Please follow the instructions here: Anaconda/Updates.

To check which kernel package architectures are currently installed:

rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}.%{ARCH}\n"|grep kernel|sortIf the installed kernel architecture is i586, but your machine is i686 capable (Pentium II or K6II or higher), use the following simple workaround:

  1. Install yumdownloader. yumdownloader is part of yum-utils in Fedora Extras. You can also manually download the kernel.su -c "yum install yum-utils"
  2. Get the current i686 kernel:yumdownloader kernel.i686
  3. If the version of the kernel downloaded is larger than currently installed:su -c "rpm -ivh kernel-2*.i686.rpm"
    • Alternatively, if the version of the kernel downloaded is the same as that currently installed:su -c "rpm -ivh --replacefiles --replacepkgs kernel-2*.i686.rpm"
  4. Restart the machine.reboot
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Mummy, what’s Santa doing? http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/mummy-whats-santa-doing/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/mummy-whats-santa-doing/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:23:30 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/mummy-whats-santa-doing/ I got a great Christmas card today with a great stamp on it.
Now I might be wrong, but is that not Santa shitting down a chimney?

santa.jpg
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Creating shadows with Imagemagick http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/creating-shadows-with-imagemagick/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/creating-shadows-with-imagemagick/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:09:57 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/21/creating-shadows-with-imagemagick/ I needed to create drop shadows on around 200 images. I didn’t really like the idea of doing it with Gimp as that would have taken hours! It is really simple to do it using Imagemagick

convert
\( +clone -background black -shadow 80×3+5+5 \) +swap -background white -mosaic

I needed to convert a whole directory, so it’s just a simple case of wrapping it around a loop

for a in *.jpg
do
echo $a
convert "$a" \( +clone -background black -shadow 80x3+5+5 \) +swap -background white -mosaic "shadows/$a"
done

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HSBC - Make the right choice http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/19/hsbc-make-the-right-choice/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/19/hsbc-make-the-right-choice/#comments Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:32:18 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/19/hsbc-make-the-right-choice/ hsbc.jpg

I received this e-mail from HSBC earlier today telling me that I’d given HSBC my e-mail address but not the permission to use it. Yes that’s right HSBC. I haven’t given you permission to use my e-mail address.. SO DON’T FUCKING USE IT!

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When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, You can always have downtime http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/06/when-youre-alone-and-life-is-making-you-lonely-you-can-always-have-downtime/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/06/when-youre-alone-and-life-is-making-you-lonely-you-can-always-have-downtime/#comments Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:04:33 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/12/06/when-youre-alone-and-life-is-making-you-lonely-you-can-always-have-downtime/ Wahoo, I’m back! You’ve probably noticed that Deaconsworld has been down for the last few days. I’m really sorry about that, but everything back and working now.

Pipex have upgraded my line from 1Mb to 2Mb but things didn’t go well as they allocated me a new IP range. All sorted now though. Thanks to Suzanne in Business Retentions.

Anyway still having problems with e-mail or their website please drop me an e-mail.

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noneofmp3.com http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/29/noneofmp3com/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/29/noneofmp3com/#comments Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:49:42 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/29/noneofmp3com/ So the US have finally got their way and closed allofmp3.com. For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the last couple of years, allofmp3 is a Russian site that sells very cheap, none DRM‘d MP3s. This was great for consumers, but not great for the RIAA as Russian law allowed allofmp3 to only have to pay 15% in royalties.

As the xenophobic US Government doesn’t like anyone who isn’t a full paid-up, flag waving American they started to put pressure on the Russians to close the site, even though it was operating within Russian law.

What really annoys me is what gives the US the right to bully, invade and impose their laws on other countries. Just because the US doesn’t like something doesn’t mean it wrong, evil or funding terrorism!


Read the full Office of the United States Trade Representative Press release here.

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How to play an instrument the easy way http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/28/how-to-play-an-instrument-the-easy-way/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/28/how-to-play-an-instrument-the-easy-way/#comments Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:05:24 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/28/how-to-play-an-instrument-the-easy-way/ I promise I’m not just going to post videos to this site but I had to do this one for all those struggling musicians out there. Stop playing with your instruments and start learning to edit video :-)

Wait till the piano comes in before you get bored!

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My theory is true! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/27/my-theory-is-true/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/27/my-theory-is-true/#comments Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:00:11 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/27/my-theory-is-true/ Here’s my theory on the Internet. There are 3 (and only 3!) types of internet user. You are either 1) A Terrorist, 2) A Pedo or 3) A 14 year old girl. Just to prove it, here is the funniest FUD videos you’ll ever see.

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Flash player 9 for linux http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/flash-player-9-for-linux/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/flash-player-9-for-linux/#comments Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:52:34 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/flash-player-9-for-linux/ UPDATE - Adobe have finally released Flash player 9 for Linux. Read more

If you’re still struggling on with Flash player 7 for Linux, you might like to know that Adobe have released Player 9 for Linux. It’s still in beta, but I’ve been using it for a while and haven’t had any problem. The installer’s isn’t as clean as an rpm, but give it a try!

Installation:

cd ~
wget http://www.adobe.com/go/fp9_update_b2_installer_linuxplugin
tar xvfz FP9_plugin_beta*.tar.gz
cd flash-player-plugin*
su - (or sudo -s)
cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Good luck!

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Give me sympathy! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/give-me-sympathy/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/give-me-sympathy/#comments Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:35:23 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/24/give-me-sympathy/ ouch.JPG

Continuing my love/hate relationship with Tesco, I think they must have something against me! I’ve now found I can do the splits, providing I have a escalator and it’s been raining. I know it doesn’t look much, but it bloody hurt!

It did make me think; at what age do you get the pain threshold of a wet lettuce? I did this and much worse as a kid and I don’t remember it hurting.

Anyway, it would make me feel much better if everyone would suck air through their teeth and say “oooo”. Thank you and enjoy my pain.

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Warning: do not search Yahoo! for ‘franchise’ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/warning-do-not-search-yahoo-for-franchise/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/warning-do-not-search-yahoo-for-franchise/#comments Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:56:16 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/warning-do-not-search-yahoo-for-franchise/ NSFW!

Hmmm, If you’re bored then don’t search yahoo images for the work ‘franchise’. Why not? You’ll learn!

read more

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How to increase my ego http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/how-to-increase-my-ego/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/how-to-increase-my-ego/#comments Thu, 23 Nov 2006 08:26:44 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/how-to-increase-my-ego/ Due to ‘popular’ demand, I’ve created a little about me page. Come and have a look and make me feel loved :-)

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The best way to destroy your company http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/the-best-way-to-destroy-your-company/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/the-best-way-to-destroy-your-company/#comments Thu, 23 Nov 2006 00:09:59 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/23/the-best-way-to-destroy-your-company/ As you may know, I’m getting married soon and one thing that really annoys me is that when any company (like printers or caterers) hears the word “Wedding” their prices immediately treble. So, it was with great pleasure I read this story on The Register.

Apparently a Kiwi couple decided not to go ahead with a marquee hire from The Great Marquee Company, only to recieve the following e-mail:

Hi Steve, Thanks for your reply. Your wedding sounded cheap, nasty and tacky anyway, so we only ever considered you time wasters. Our marquees are for upper class clients which unfortunately you are not. Why don’t you stay within your class level and buy something from payless plastics instead. Kindest Regards Katrina Office Manager

The e-mail has ended up on bridal message boards worldwide and in hundred of mailboxes. Although the company has “apologised”, I somehow think it might hurt their profits a little bit.

My favorite bit of this whole story is that the evil employee who was fired after sending this e-mail, was apparently the CEO’s wife!

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Blackhatters 1, Whitehatters 0 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/22/blackhatters-1-whitehatters-0/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/22/blackhatters-1-whitehatters-0/#comments Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:44:32 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/22/blackhatters-1-whitehatters-0/ The government have today published the new Police and Justice Act, which makes it an offense to “supply or offer to supply any article believing that it is likely to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, [a hacking offence]“. The word “article” is defined in the Act to include “any program or data held in electronic form”.

Great! So now we have a system where criminal hackers will carry on producing and using ‘hacking’ software such as nmap, nessus or hping2 but it will be a criminal offense for security industry to use them to test for vulnerabilities.

Read more

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Internet Explorer on Linux http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/19/internet-explorer-on-linux/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/19/internet-explorer-on-linux/#comments Sun, 19 Nov 2006 20:17:07 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/19/internet-explorer-on-linux/ ieonlinux.png

If you want to run IE on linux, take a look at IEs4Linux. It’s very easy to install, just type the following as a normal user:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

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Tesco beat Reid to compulsory ID http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/18/tesco-think-31/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/18/tesco-think-31/#comments Sat, 18 Nov 2006 18:19:26 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/18/tesco-think-31/ tesco-log.gifWe had a party last night, nothing huge just some friends over for a Chinese. Me and another of our friends we given the truly exciting job of going to Tescos to buy drinks.

So off we trot to Tesco. We get to the till with our 3 items, a bottle of Sprite, a bottle of coke and some alcohol and as the girl on the till is about 12 she needs to shout at the top of her lungs “ALLLCCAAAAHOOOLLLLL”. Supervisor walks over and asks us for ID. Now I’m nearly 30 and no-one’s asked me for ID in the last 10 year so I’m happy. However the friend I’m with (who’s 20) doesn’t have any ID.

“Sorry I can’t sell this to you?” says the Supervisor

“Why not?” I ask

“Cos you might be buying it for a minor” she indicates to my 20 year old friend stood next to me.

“So let me get this right, I’m not allowed to buy alcohol if I’m accompanied by someone who can’t prove they’re over 18 cos I might walk out the shop and give it to the next ASBO infested greasy teen I meet?”

“Yep”

“Right, I’m off to Morrisons!”

What makes this story more ridiculous is that we weren’t buying vodka or alchopops. No, we were buy a bottle of White Zinfandel! Yes the yobs round our way must get hammered each night on a couple bottle of rosé.

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Big Machines! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/big-machines/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/big-machines/#comments Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:02:10 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/big-machines/ Friend and colleagues laughing at you? Feel inferior? Need a really big machine?? Of course you do!
http://thrillingwonder.blogspot.com/2006/11/biggest-and-hungriest-machines.html

Big machine!

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Fedora looking damn healthy http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/fedora-looking-damn-healthy/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/fedora-looking-damn-healthy/#comments Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:51:29 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/17/fedora-looking-damn-healthy/ FedoraMax Spevack (Fedora Project Leader) yesterday announced some interesting stats about FC6. According to Max, since its release about 3 weeks ago, 300,000 unique IP addresses have checked for any updates to FC6. Wow! That’s at least 12,500 new installs per day!! Kinda pisses on DistroWatch’s stats! Oh and on a personal note… Take that Ubuntu boys!

Detailed stats are at: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ZodStats and you can read the whole release on fedora-announce-list.

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Yum’s eating my diskspace! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/yums-eating-my-diskspace/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/yums-eating-my-diskspace/#comments Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:28:52 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/yums-eating-my-diskspace/ Take a look at this!

[root@dyn89 yum]# pwd
/var/cache/yum
[root@dyn89 yum]# du -sh *
1.8M atrpms
6.1M core
5.3M development
11M extras
36K flash
84K jpackage-fedora
2.2M jpackage-generic
192K jpackage-generic-nonfree
848K livna
2.8M updates
176K updates-source
That’s 30Mb of crappy yum cache

Now take a look at this:

[root@dyn89 cache]# yum clean all
Loading “installonlyn” plugin
Cleaning up Everything
[root@dyn89 cache]# du -sh * 1.8M atrpms
12K core
5.3M development
12K extras
12K flash
84K jpackage-fedora
2.2M jpackage-generic
192K jpackage-generic-nonfree
12K livna
12K updates
176K updates-source
9.6M much healthier

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Rebuilding your RPM database http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/rebuilding-your-rpm-database/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/rebuilding-your-rpm-database/#comments Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:23:26 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/16/rebuilding-your-rpm-database/ It nice to see something are just buried and not forgotten, Like corrupt RPM databases. A few years ago this was a common problem (common to me anyway!). The problem occurs either when two rpm process try and write to the rpm database in /var/lib/rpm or an impatient operator (like me) hits ctrl-c too many times.

When this happens, you rpm process (e.g. the rpm command or yum) would just hang. So why am I talking about this if the problem was fixed ages ago? Well it seem with the new funky yum-updatesd that’s included with FC6 is causing some problems.
You can see if your effected but running this command:

rpm -qa

If you get no output then you’ve screwed your databases. Here’s how to fix it.

  1. Firstly su or sudo in to root
    su -
  2. Clear your rpm caches
    rm -v /var/lib/rpm/__*
  3. Now run the rebuild command
    rpm -vv --rebuilddb

You now gets some lovely healthy output showing you everything ok. It should look something like this:

D: adding 11 entries to Filemd5s index.
D: read h# 770 Header V3 DSA signature: OK, key ID 4f2a6fd2
D: +++ h# 1084 Header V3 DSA signature: OK, key ID 4f2a6fd2
D: adding "gimp-print-utils" to Name index.
D: adding 2 entries to Basenames index.
D: adding "Applications/Publishing" to Group index.
D: adding 12 entries to Requirename index.
D: adding "gimp-print-utils" to Providename index.
D: adding 2 entries to Dirnames index.
D: adding 12 entries to Requireversion index.
D: adding "4.2.7-22" to Provideversion index.
D: adding 1 entries to Installtid index.
D: adding 1 entries to Sigmd5 index.
D: adding "0beb1e4759ef5a92206941d9f0c9a52e0d546a2c" to Sha1header index.

You should now be able to install or upgrade using yum.

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VMware on Fedora 6 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/vmware-on-fedora-6/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/vmware-on-fedora-6/#comments Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:38:56 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/vmware-on-fedora-6/ vmware.gifI’ve used VMware on Fedora since it because free. It’s great, No more rebooting to switch between Windows and Linux to use one application that just won’t work with WINE. Since upgrading to FC6, I have a problem running vmware-config.pl. Each time I ran it, I’d get error about config.h not being found. The simple (dirty) way to fix this is to do this:

touch /usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-`uname -m`/include/linux/config.h

You should now be able to re-run vmware-config.pl without a problem.

Remember that you’ll need to do this each time you update the kernel.

Update I had a nightmare of a time getting this to work on a dual core Intel. It seems the Duos use i586 rather than i686. To fix you need to install the correct kernel devel version wget ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/fedora.redhat.com/updates/6/i386/kernel-devel-`uname -r`.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh kernel-devel*.rpm
then link to the correct linux.htouch /usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-i586/include/linux/config.h

Update 2 I think I’ve found the cause of the above weirdness. Read More

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Firefox 2 on Fedora Core 6 http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/firefox-2-on-fedora-core-6/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/firefox-2-on-fedora-core-6/#comments Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:41:49 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/13/firefox-2-on-fedora-core-6/ Just a quicky for anyone that was a bit pissed that FC6 didn’t include Firefox 2:

yum --enablerepo=development install firefox

Have fun!

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Argghhh!!! They’re coming! http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/10/argghhh-theyre-coming/ http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/2006/11/10/argghhh-theyre-coming/#comments Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:09:44 +0000 Adam Deacon http://www.deaconsworld.org.uk/blog/2006/11/10/argghhh-theyre-coming/ NEWS FLASH!!!

Arghhh! They're coming!

Giant stripes are taking over the world. Our only defense is to chew… Chew for your lives!!!!!!

Be especially wary of the sour one!

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