Entries categorized 'Blog' ↓

I seem to have been having a spell of bad luck with hard drives and data loss recently. Less than two months after my 80 Gb Freecom portable hard drive died (to be replaced by a 320Gb Freecom ToughDrive), my 320Gb Western Digital MyBook has now also developed the Click Of Death. Drat.

Fortunately everything on the MyBook was backed up onto the ToughDrive (apart from the convenience of having a portable drive to take along with my laptop, this is one of the main reasons I keep all my important stuff on two separate drives). So, no problem there.

Then today, whilst sorting through some photos of Benny, I received a dialog box informing me that one of the files was corrupted! On closer inspection, what should have been a 3Mb file was instead weighing in at around 1Kb. Oh dear. I know that we have literally thousands of images of our first-born son, but even so, we cherish each one.

Well, you may remember that last spring I signed up to Mozy.com, and have since been diligently backing up my files (currently around 60Gb of precious data) to their servers on a regular basis. This minor loss of a file was my first chance to test their restore process, and I'm pleased to report that it worked swimmingly.

First, I right-clicked on the corrupt file, and selected "Restore Previous Version", which brought up the following window:

Note that two versions of the file have been backed up - the original 3Mb version on 8th August, followed by the corrupted version on 27th August. I have no idea what happened to it in the intervening time!

I right-clicked on the original version, and chose to overwrite the local copy. Mozy's servers then took about 30 seconds to find the file, and a similar time to download it.

Bam! File restored. Easy. Thanks, Mozy!

I realised today, somewhat belatedly, that our shiny Toyota Verso is due for its first service (the service interval is shorter than on my previous car, which caught me out).

So, I'm trying to book my service online for this Friday afternoon, using Toyota's glossy and professional-looking UK website. But every time I try to progress onto the second screen, I'm thwarted by this message:

Now this strikes me as a little bit odd, as Friday 12th is clearly between 2 and 90 days from today.

I decide to go spelunking around in the source, and quickly find this gem within a JavaScript function entitled "checkDate":

if (selectedDate > maxAvailableDay) {
    alert ("Please note, your online service booking must be between 5 and 90 days from today. If you wish to book a service outside of this period, please contact your local Toyota Contre directly.");
    return false;
}

if (selectedDate < nextAvailableDay) {
    alert ("Please note, your online service booking must be between 2 and 90 days from today. If you wish to book a service outside of this period, please contact your local Toyota Centre directly.");
    return false;
}

Ouchy. So the date range check has been done in two steps, rather than using an or operator, and the message text differs between each step. The nextAvailableDay variable is correctly being set to five days hence, but the message is incorrect in this case. I was going to cite cut-and-paste coding but then I noticed the mis-spelling of "Centre" in the first message so now I'm not sure.

Just for fun, I tried circumventing the client-side validation by entering javascript:document.forms[0].submit(); in my browser's address bar, and that got me through to the next step of the process just fine (no server-side validation, then). But I stopped short of going through with the online service booking - I'll be a good boy and phone my local Toyota Contre directly, as the message suggests.

I do hope that what's going on under my Toyota's hood is of a higher quality than the code that's driving their website!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I've just seen this snappily-titled Motion for a European Parliament Resolution on Concentration and Pluralism in the Media in the European Union.

It appears that our elected officials in Brussels, never known for their love of the wild and crazy interweb, are now considering regulating blogging:

"...whereas weblogs are an increasingly common medium for self-expression by media professionals as well as private persons, the status of their authors and publishers, including their legal status, is neither determined nor made clear to the readers of the weblogs, causing uncertainties regarding impartiality, reliability, source protection, applicability of ethical codes and the assignment of liability in the event of lawsuits..."

Did they just say you're too dumb to tell the difference between news.bbc.co.uk and ianfnelson.com?

"...whereas the level of media literacy among the citizens of the European Union is below desirable levels and awareness of the need for media literacy is low..."

Yep, they did.

"Stresses the need to institute monitoring and implementation systems for media pluralism based on reliable and impartial indicators..."

Don't worry about it guys, Googlebot has that one covered for you.

"Proposes the introduction of fees commensurate with the commercial value of the user-generated content..."

At least that shouldn't cost me too much, judging by the quality of comments on this blog :-)

"Suggests clarifying the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs and encourages their voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and interests of their authors and publishers..."

Voluntary labelling for blogs! I am utterly amazed and can't wait to hear what kind of information such labels should contain. Will it just be one of those CE logos on any blog that meets a set of standards? Maybe we can go for some traffic-light blobs like the ones on food, warning about the proportions of geekery, bad language, rumour-mongering, teenaged witterings about how unfair school was today, and general navel-gazing...?

"Recommends the inclusion of media literacy among the 9 basic competences..."

They called you dumb again.

"Recommends that the regulations governing state aid are implemented in a way allowing the public service media to fulfil its function in a dynamic environment..."

Because bloggers pose such a threat to the BBC, don't they?!

The whole thing is so utterly unbelievable that I wouldn't have believed it if I'd only read it on one of those dangerous unregulated weblog things. But there it is, in black and white, a PDF on europarl.europa.eu. Crazy.

Update - Daniel Hannan has picked up on this topic in today's Torygraph too.

Update 2 - and another thing - have they considered the practicalities of trying to regulate the web? This site, for example, is hosted on servers in the United States.

Today was a proud day indeed. Remember four years ago when I blogged about Jocelyn getting a fiancee visa from the British Consulate in Los Angeles, which paved the way for her to travel to Blighty with the intention of marrying me..?

Well, since then we've turned that fiancee visa into a limited leave visa, and then into a settlement visa. We have spent over £2000 on government fees for these various rubber stamps - outrageously high amounts which resulted in letters being sent to and from the Home Office. Along the way, we got married, moved house, and of course Benjamin came along to change our lives forever (in a good way, of course, Son!).

But I'm proud to report that today Jocelyn collected a certificate of naturalisation from Peter Sowray, Chairman of North Yorkshire County Council, granting her full British Citizenship. 

She has already put this dual nationality to good use, by this evening registering to vote in both the UK and the US! Good on ya, wifey!

Well, I'm coming to the end of an enjoyable 26 weeks at Ventura and will be available for my next engagement from Monday 08 September 2008.

So, if you know anybody in the Leeds area who could use the services of a .NET developer, please point them in the direction of my CV. Cheers!

My good buddy John just published a typically navel-gazing post detailing the contents of his wallet, and went on to invite readers to divulge details of their own billfolds in what I can only presume is some cunning and evil plan for mass identity-theft :-)

Well, as I said in the comments to John's post, I was surprised at the quantity of sentimental knick-knacks and memorabilia he has in there, compared to the rather prosaic and functional contents of my own wallet.

The wallet itself is a simple black leather one from Burberry, and tonight contains the following:

• £90. In case you were thinking of mugging me, you should know that I don't usually carry nearly so much.
• A bunch of receipts from the week. Come tomorrow evening the details will all have been religiously input into MS Money, and the receipts shredded.
• Four first-class stamps.
• A Starbucks card - essential for those occasional lunches with John :-)
• Three credit cards, one from each of the major providers. You can never be sure which will be accepted, and the occasional system failure or over-zealous anti-fraud software has resulted in me having to offer all three before a transaction could be processed.
• A debit card, which I mostly use this for taking cash out of ATMs. I don't see the point in using it for payments if I can help it, preferring to get the interest-free period and insurance that comes from using a credit card instead.
• My Microsoft Certified Professional card. I'm not sure what the point of carrying this is - maybe I won't put it back!
• A "Club Toyota" membership card. I don't really get the point of this one, either.
• A membership card for my local gym. This whole gym-going malarkey is a relatively new thing for me, and I'm grateful to my wifey for persuading me to join, as I feel much fitter for getting a bit of exercise a few times a week. I think having kids is a big incentive to start taking care of yourself, as you want to stick around as long as possible to share their lives.
• A Costco trade membership card. One of the nice perks of being a company director is being able to go to Costco and buy 45 toilet rolls and a gallon of Tabasco whenever I fancy!
• National Trust membership card. We find ourselves wandering round stately piles quite often, in an effort to Bentertain the one year old.
• Driving license.
• North Yorkshire County Libraries card. Libraries gave us power!
• "Loyalty" cards from Boots, Shell, WHSmith, Coop, Tesco and Nectar. I'm not very loyal, but I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

And that's your lot. Not very interesting really, eh?

'tis an odd world in which an unpublicised snapshot of some sand which I absent-mindedly took on a New South Wales beach in January 2003 can gradually become the seventh most-viewed item in my Flickr Photostream.

It occurred to me recently that I'm not getting any younger, and that sitting hunched over a keyboard for a dozen hours a day will probably lead to some form of RSI sooner or later. So I started looking for ways to improve my daily working environment.

Unlike John, I can't afford a Herman Miller chair, and even if I could, I'm a freelancer rather than a telecommuter* so I would have to regularly carry the chair on the train to client sites, where they would probably ostracise me for being a weirdo who brings his own chair to the office. So I looked for something a little more portable, and decided that perhaps it was finally time for me to try one of those fancy split ergonomic keyboards that I've always scoffed at. After reading a few review on Amazon, I plumped for the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

I should probably mention at this point that I've never been formally taught to type, and I don't touch-type in the traditional way, with fingers sticking loyally around the ASDF JKL: keys. I've been more of an autodidact, typing quickly but inefficiently, a few finger dancing crazily around the keys whilst the others (notably my pinkies) float lazily in the air, dreaming of the time they were once called upon to pull a wishbone or contribute to a clenched fist.

This means that initially, I found adjusting to the layout of the ergonomic keyboard quite tough - I was slowed down, and had to relearn the relative positions of the keys. For a week or so, I only used the new keyboard at home, as it would have been too slow and frustrating for workaday use. But gradually I grew accustomed to it, and found that I appreciated being able to rest my palms on the wrist-rest, with fingers dropping down towards the keys courtesy of the reverse slope.

So, I took a further plunge, and bought a second keyboard to take to the office. A few months more have passed, and now I can't imagine using anything else on a daily basis. It really is more comfortable, and my shoulders and arms feel considerably more relaxed. I'm also back up to the kind of wpm that achieved on a standard keyboard.

Other than the ergonomic design, the 4000 series boasts a few other features, some of which may appeal, depending on the kind of applications you frequently use:

Notably, all the function keys have been relabelled with additional functionality such as Undo, Redo, New, Open, Close, Spell, Save and Print. Depending on your mentality you will either find this incredibly useful or incredibly annoying (if you're in the latter camp then you'll be pleased to know that ordinary service can be resumed thanks to an "F Lock" key.

I am fond of the button which launches Calculator (one of my most often-launched applications), as well as the buttons to control volume and pause media player (which works fine with iTunes 7).

I also appreciate the additional four buttons above the numeric keypad - putting an extra equals, parentheses and backspace where you'll find them most useful when working with a spreadsheet or similar

There are also buttons to launch a web browser, email application, navigate to a search engine, open favourites, navigate back and forth, a zoom control, and five customisable buttons - but to be honest I haven't made use of any of these. YMMV.

So, in summary - having got past those difficult early "getting to know you" dates, I now foresee a long and happy relationship with the 4000 series. And I'm sure my shoulders will be happy to hear that.

* does anybody say "telecommuter" these days?  It sounds very 1996...

Childless people who blatantly park in the parent and child spaces:

Ooh, it makes me mad. This convertible was lucky that our Ben didn't need to "go", as I was sorely tempted to leave them one of his nappies as a present!

Perhaps if you don't have kids you don't realise what a huge benefit these spaces are to parents, enabling them to extract their little darlings from car seats without accidentally knocking the door into the car in the next space. Being closer to the store is nice (reducing the risk of the kids getting mowed down en route) but of less benefit to be honest - and in the case captured on camera above, there were plenty of normal spaces closer to the entrance, so I really don't know what this guy was thinking. Most likely he wasn't thinking at all.

Oh, and to those parents who continue parking in the P&C spaces by virtue of having a fourteen year-old kid in the car - c'mon, give me a break!

A few days ago I blogged about how neat it was that when I browsed the BBC News via a GPRS/HSDPA connection, the JPEGs were all magically degraded to cause them to load quicker.

Had I stopped to think about this for a while I would have realised that it was not specific to that one site, nor could it have feasibly been implemented by the Beeb. The functionality is inserted by Vodafone, my mobile carrier, and affects all JPEGs (it just so happened that BBC News is one of the sites I often visit when out and about, and it was obvious that the usually high-quality photographs were being degraded).

Investigating a bit more, what's really neat is that the JPEGs have had their ALT tags modified, to point out that hitting Shift-R when hovering over an image will the original version to be asynchronously loaded:

After hitting Shift-R, Harriet and Gordon are considerably less "furry":

I really should have just Googled this a week ago!

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vodafone+image+compression