www.nick-andrew.net

LifeView TV Walker Twin

Firmware for the LifeView TV Walker Twin (DVB-T USB digital TV receiver) can be found here at dvb-usb-tvwalkert.fw. Copy the file (without renaming it) into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/. This is needed to make the device work in linux.

I'm working on a driver and it will be merged into the linux-dvb project repository in a few days.

pwned again!

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raid1 superblock version

It seems that the software raid1 superblock version 1.0 is not fully supported by linux. I created two raid1 arrays, one with a version 0.90 superblock and the other with version 1.0. During kernel boot, the md autoconfiguration found the 0.90 superblock array, but said it could not find a superblock for the other array.

Furthermore, LILO refuses to install onto a raid1 array with a version 1.0 superblock. As soon as I converted it to version 0.90, LILO worked fine.

Lastly, the manpage for pivot_root(2) fails to note that the system call cannot be used to move away an initramfs. I dug into the kernel source code and it's clearly noted in a comment above the function definition.

2007-02-14

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A tiny web template tool

It took me just one hour to write a tiny web template tool in perl which is now driving this website. The news items are now included using the following tag:

{News dir=data/news limit=10}

This instantiates the 'News' module and runs it with the supplied arguments.

The key to getting it going so quickly was that it processes the same SHTML files which I used to use to give the site a consistent layout. It parses the '#include' directives and runs itself recursively on the specified filename. Thus, I was able to move the site to the templating CGI script without changing any of the content files. I then added the tag parser to instantiate modules from a "Plugins" directory, and wrote a News module to read a sequence of news items from individual files in a directory. Finally I split the single news.html file into one file per news item.

Euphemisms for share price movements

In Market catches breath after record pace I can see a huge variety of euphemisms for share price rises and falls.

Let's categorise them ...

Falls

fell x 2
dropped
reversed x 3
dumped x 2
gave away
backtracked
sagged
eased
off
descended
poorer
stepped back

Rises

jumped x 2
rose x 2
firmed
heavier
surged
up

Unchanged

steady x 2

That's quite a swag of terms. Each one holds some connotations - like "reversed" would imply that the stock price had gone down soon after a rise. But ultimately aren't these words all talking about the same thing - the share price dropped? I wonder if there's any meaning in those words or if the author simply has a list of synonyms and chooses them at random, for variety.

The whole article could have been written much more compactly with a 4-column table: the share name, the closing price, the number of cents up or down, and the surmised reason for the change, if any.

Cleaning up the inbox

I started refiling my inbox. It is too full! I've moved most of them to vertical files in my desk drawer, neatly labeled. My goal is to eliminate paper from my desk.

A search engine, at last

I added a search box to the left-hand column. The database is updated nightly. It uses ht://Dig as the engine. Richard Stallman's homepage provided the final motivation.

On the robustness of DVDs

I burned a bad DVD today (used wrong mkisofs options and so didn't get the necessary Rock Ridge extensions). So after re-burning a correct one I set about destroying the data on the old one. It's sensitive and encrypted data.

I scored the top of the DVD several times with a kitchen knife. In the past that has destroyed some CDRs because it removes the reflective layer needed for the reader to get at the data. This process didn't harm this DVD; all the files are still readable with no I/O errors. Even though I can see through the scratches.

In Stage 2 I rubbed steel wool all over the underside. That wasn't sufficient. I can still read some files without errors, although it is definitely unable to read the bigger files.

In Stage 3 I tried to snap the DVD into two pieces. Unfortunately it is very flexible. I bent the surface 180 degrees and it didn't snap, in fact it looks totally unscathed by that maltreatment. Next I held it over an open flame, with only minimal damage apparent. It seems today's DVDs are virtually indestructible.

2006-01-28

I modified the apt-cacher project page to reflect the current situation with respect to apt-cacher (i.e. in that I no longer maintain it and it's part of Debian proper now).

2005-12-24

I know waiting over 2 years between updates is not good web karma. Anyway I had an old Molymerx software catalogue in my cupboard. I plan to put all the old TRS-80 stuff online sometime, and I wanted to clear some space in the cupboard. So I have scanned it in at 200 dpi for anybody interested. Here's the link: Molymerx Catalogue Dec 1982
Merry Xmas to all!

2003-07-14

I have created the System-80 Gallery with some pictures of my first computer. Sorry, no descriptions are online (it would take me much longer to write descriptions than to simply place the photos online).

2003-02-17

Does anybody have a scanner for microfiche? I have about 50 sheets of microfiche containing a small amount of source code I wish to preserve. I tried scanning them, even at 2400dpi the characters are little black blobs. Some optical magnification is obviously necessary prior to scanning.
It appears that with Tel$tra's February 11th press release about supporting ICQ over SMS, that they have blocked SMS to Tel$tra numbers except to subscribers to this "new service", who pay their outrageous 25c charge per SMS received. My mobile is on Vodafone because it saves me $25 to $30 per month compared to T$, who were screwing me blind for years with their mobile rates. Vodafone and Optus numbers are still able to receive SMS from ICQ. Except that when I gave T$ the finger, I kept the T$ number and ported it to Voda. Therefore, my mobile can no longer receive SMS from ICQ. T$ continues to screw me, even though I'm no longer a customer!

2002-12-08

Added a mini-rant on ethical Internet Advertising.

2002-12-01

I got an email from somebody in a position of some responsibility, asking that one of my projects be removed from my website. Can you guess which? Naturally I refused. Freedom 1, Self-censorship 0.

2002-11-11

I added a new project, logrun. It's a script I have used for years to reduce the amount of unnecessary output from cron jobs which ends up in my mailbox. Logrun keeps the output unless the job failed (in which case the output is sent to STDOUT or emailed to any desired email address).

2002-11-10

I added a new project, math-trainer. It's just a trivial little CGI script for a child to use to practice answering random math questions. It shows a (random) cute image on each correct answer.
I wrote a document, "Big Server" which describes an architecture I designed be a little scalable and provide some protection against disk failure, yet still be cheap to implement. It's in the new "Technical" section on the links part on the left.

2002-11-09

I added a "donate" button on the left hand side of each page. This uses PayPal. If some of my source code helped you out of a tough spot, please feel free to send some appreciation. Also I wanted to do something with PayPal's e-commerce interface for proper business transactions, but haven't had time to look at it yet (the donate button was only 5 minutes work copied from somebody else's website).

2002-10-05

My main home server (which also runs my screen and keyboard) died (disk failure). I took that opportunity to complete the installation of my new main server, which is much more powerful and uses RAID-1 (mirroring) for redundancy of data storage.
Note for John ... see oscar2125

2002-08-30

I added a new project, mp3cd-tools, which I wrote to put a lot of my MP3 albums onto CD-R in an efficient and painless way.

2002-08-04

I released an update to the Ausadmin software today. It fixes a lot of minor issues regarding following the process of newsgroup creation. The next update will be even better.

2002-07-15

I got really sick with the flu which was going around. It put me down for about a week!

2002-06-29

I made another snapshot release of the ausadmin software from today and put it online. This has some bugs fixed re proposal state handling.
I finished placing all my TRS-80 source code online. By my count there are 226 programs in the archive, not including patches to other peoples' code nor multiple similar versions of the same thing.

2002-06-26

I've been diagnosed with some kind of lung allergy causing bronchitis. I need to use asthma medication (inhaled) for the next 6 weeks, and then according to the Doc that will be the end of it. Cross fingers!

2002-06-23

I'm slowly making a TRS-80 package for each category and then putting it online.

2002-06-18

A post I made to comp.sys.tandy (describing a potential development project for Tim Mann's xtrs TRS-80 emulator) has inspired George Phillips to start his own project, trsdisk. Trsdisk builds a "virtual TRS-80 disk image" for use in an emulator (i.e. xtrs) based on the content of files in the host's directory. In other words, the emulated TRS-80 system can access native files. George points out that his project is still experimental. I am hoping that I get the chance to improve on it sometime.

2002-06-13

I've been systematically going through my recovered TRS-80 files looking for source code, categorising and adding it to CVS revision management. There were over 200 programs, last time I counted. Next step is to clean up the categories and then package up the sources for release on this website. I will probably be grouping similar programs for release efficiency, so might end up with 30 or so packages.

2002-05-31

Added the first of the TRS-80 packages, as a test.

2002-05-30

Updated the calendar program so it works properly with Evolution. See projects/sms-notify.
Added aunic-modify project, some cool code I wrote to do bulk updates of the database at www.aunic.net. See projects/aunic-modify.
Added links to new apt-cacher website. See projects/apt-cacher.
Somehow the wav-fixer project got lost. It is replaced now.
Added "Miscellaneous Project" and moved misc sources into it. See projects/misc.