It's been a while since I last blogged anything, and, being a techie, you won't be surprised to find out that i've been playing around with a few things.
If you're a techie like me, you'll appreciate the whole raft of "technical support requests" that come in from various friends and family members... "martin, can you have a look at this vista laptop" or "chadders, can you sort out the display drivers on this ubuntu machine". Now, don't get me wrong, i'm more than willing to help them out, I know they'd help me out if I needed it, but since I'm really the only person in my circle of friends and family that has more than a modicum of IT experience, it's naturally me they ask if they need anything beyond the "how do you do this in Word?" variety.
The only trouble is that some of them live quite a distance away, and sometimes it would simply take all my time to drive to their houses (frankly, it's usually impossible to explain how to sort things over the phone with me, i'm definitely a "hands-on" kind of guy.....). So, internally, I run a combination of Windows XP Home, Ubuntu Linux and Damn Small Linux on various machines (plus a myriad of other OSes using VMs, of course, as outlined in a earlier blog), all networked using a Netgear DG834GT router / ADSL modem, and, crucially, I access them all pretty much remotely using a combination of TightVNC (for the XP Home machine which doesn't support "standard" Remote Desktop (RDP)) and Remote Desktop (RDP).
So, after a recent request for some Microsoft Windows Vista support at my brother-in-laws, I decided to look into educating them into allowing me remote access to their machines.
Now, on an internal network, it's one thing, over the internet, it's slightly more involved. Let's take the Vista case study. Firstly, you have to setup port-forwarding on the router (if it supports it.. most modern ones do). This is so your router's external IP address (and relevant port) will automatically shunt traffic onto the machine which sits behind the router, in this case, the Vista machine. This was relatively easy to do once I'd instructed him how to
access the router admin page. Note, that I actually installed TightVNC on Vista for this to work, for no other reason other than I like the web interface that it offers, there's no reason why I couldn't use RDP (except on XP Home). Once the windows firewall had had port 5800 and 5900 enabled (these are the two default ports that TightVNC uses), simply entering into a java enabled browser (firefox, in my case), http://ip_address:5800/, enter the defined password and bang, I'm in, with his desktop in my browser. Brilliant, now it means I can do most things from here, rather than going to his house.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Heritage and showcaves...
Usual stuff.. it's been a while since I blogged about anything, so thought I'd fill you all in about a superb heritage trip undertaken today. As you all know by now, I'm a member of English Heritage and, as such, I take time as much as possible to visit as many sites as possible. Anyway, the second year of the membership has finally kicked in and, as a consequence, we now get
free access to sites of CADW (Wales), Historic Scotland and Manx Heritage.
The focus will always be on english heritage sites, though, since it's my mother country.
Today's journey was to the lovely derbyshire town of Castleton, and the fantastic Peveril Castle. For the pictures, keep checking on StrangeHub.co.uk (when I get around to posting the images etc.).
While we were there, we went to Peak Cavern (also known as The Devil's Arse), a superb showcave with the largest cave entrance in the British Isles. The cave system extends for miles underneath the stunning derbyshire countryside, and part of the hour-long tour actually goes into the caves underneath Peveril Castle, which is made more intriguing if you've just, like we had, been in the castle literally an hour before!
The tour stops at the devil's cellar, but the cave system carries on for miles more, connecting directly with the other boat-trip oriented Speedwell Cavern.
It should also be noted that the famous Titan cave system, the longest free-hanging cave ever found in the UK, was found in 1999 when cavers first discovered the connection between Speedwell and Peak Caverns.
free access to sites of CADW (Wales), Historic Scotland and Manx Heritage.
The focus will always be on english heritage sites, though, since it's my mother country.
Today's journey was to the lovely derbyshire town of Castleton, and the fantastic Peveril Castle. For the pictures, keep checking on StrangeHub.co.uk (when I get around to posting the images etc.).
While we were there, we went to Peak Cavern (also known as The Devil's Arse), a superb showcave with the largest cave entrance in the British Isles. The cave system extends for miles underneath the stunning derbyshire countryside, and part of the hour-long tour actually goes into the caves underneath Peveril Castle, which is made more intriguing if you've just, like we had, been in the castle literally an hour before!
The tour stops at the devil's cellar, but the cave system carries on for miles more, connecting directly with the other boat-trip oriented Speedwell Cavern.
It should also be noted that the famous Titan cave system, the longest free-hanging cave ever found in the UK, was found in 1999 when cavers first discovered the connection between Speedwell and Peak Caverns.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The promise (and cool-ness) of Virtualisation...
Well, I've been having some fun recently with VMs. Basically, I've got my head around QEMU, along with VMWare Player, and have been having fun with setting up a whole series of VMs to suit my purposes (both short and long term). At the moment, I'm blogging this in Ubuntu (my "main" OS), I've got my own personal wiki running using a MediaWiki via JumpBox VM and evaluating Damn Small Linux ( a 50MB (yeah, 50MB!) Debian / GNU LInux distro ) as an OS which could eventually make it's way onto my kids PC (when they get old enough to want one, of course, and by that time something else will probably have made it's way on to the top of my "this is extremely cool" list.... ;-)).
Oh, did I say that I was also using the same wiki from Windows XP and Windows Vista laptops as well, and I've got a seperate Ubuntu VM for my Oracle 10g XE installation? All this and most of the VMs have either VNC or RDesktop which allows me to remotely access them.
My long term goal is to have some kind of low-energy server (wouldn't even need a monitor) with a very lightweight OS, i.e. just enough to run the various VMs, such as Oracle, proxy server, web server etc., and then have the other machines simply connect to them via TCP/IP (with VNC access, if required). Most companies I know of which utilise VMs do so in this way. True enough, the VM server has to be relatively meaty, but they can be very "hardware light", i.e. no hard disk is required with the advent of NAS drives. Creation of VMs can always be done via ISO disk image, so I suppose that at least one device has to have a CD/DVD drive, but it doesn't have to be the server. Certainly, no monitor is required, since VNC access from a "client" device can see the output of any VM, and booting can be done from USB pen drive.
My current thoughts for a lightweight "computer" for the kids is, therefore, a laptop with no HDD or CD/DVD drive, with motherboard ability to boot from USB and a USB drive with Damn Small Linux (DSL) installed on it. All file system storage can be done on a NAS drive,
and any particular programs that they need, I'd simply set up a VM, but let's face it, there's a heck of a lot of on-line office applications now (i.e. word processor / spreadsheet etc) that simply run in an Ajax-enabled browser.
Oh, did I say that I was also using the same wiki from Windows XP and Windows Vista laptops as well, and I've got a seperate Ubuntu VM for my Oracle 10g XE installation? All this and most of the VMs have either VNC or RDesktop which allows me to remotely access them.
My long term goal is to have some kind of low-energy server (wouldn't even need a monitor) with a very lightweight OS, i.e. just enough to run the various VMs, such as Oracle, proxy server, web server etc., and then have the other machines simply connect to them via TCP/IP (with VNC access, if required). Most companies I know of which utilise VMs do so in this way. True enough, the VM server has to be relatively meaty, but they can be very "hardware light", i.e. no hard disk is required with the advent of NAS drives. Creation of VMs can always be done via ISO disk image, so I suppose that at least one device has to have a CD/DVD drive, but it doesn't have to be the server. Certainly, no monitor is required, since VNC access from a "client" device can see the output of any VM, and booting can be done from USB pen drive.
My current thoughts for a lightweight "computer" for the kids is, therefore, a laptop with no HDD or CD/DVD drive, with motherboard ability to boot from USB and a USB drive with Damn Small Linux (DSL) installed on it. All file system storage can be done on a NAS drive,
and any particular programs that they need, I'd simply set up a VM, but let's face it, there's a heck of a lot of on-line office applications now (i.e. word processor / spreadsheet etc) that simply run in an Ajax-enabled browser.
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Friday, July 27, 2007
An eventful week....
Well, to say it's been an eventful week would be an understatement.
Tuesday morning, 3:15am, house alarm goes off. Thinking that my 2 year old son has tripped the alarm again by going downstairs (which he's done before), I wander downstairs. As I open the living room door, I see two burglars in the kitchen. Well, I (as anyone would) run towards them, yelling all manner of things... They, of course, decide to make a quick exit. A tussle occurs between one of them and myself, resulting in a minor screwdriver stab to my upper arm. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they bolt over the garden fence, and are gone.
Turns out that I'd left the patio doors unlocked, which I never usually do, and they'd been a couple of scally chancers who had been trying the houses on the off chance that someone (like me) had left a door or a window open. Actually, one of the burglars had reminded me of the fact when they were leaving, shouting "Remember to lock your doors in future!". Fantastic, community safety advice from burglars.....
Anyway, a visit or two from C.I.D., uniformed police officers and a forensic officer taking prints, and I'm back to normal again. I'm not going to deny that it was a scary experience, but at the time (with your family in the house with you), the adrenalin starts pumping and you don't really think about the threat, all you're concerned about is getting them out as quickly as possible.
On a lighter note, I went to see my daughter's nursery graduation today. That's right, today is her official last day before she starts school in september. It was also my son's last day as well, since he's moving to a different nursery in september, so it's all change. It was very emotional. The staff always get emotional, which you expect, since they've known the kids for over two years, most of them for most of each week, and then they go off to start whichever school they've managed to get in. My wife and I certainly got emotional, since it's very much the end of an era. As much as I know they're going to enjoy school and the new nursery, I'm going to miss that nursery. It's a lovely place, the staff are great, and it's a place which I've seen my kids develop from being babies to being young, confident children.
On the viewing front, I watched Jimmy Carr's 2005 stand up show Stand Up 2005. Yes, I agree, imaginatively titled.
Anyway, what a funny guy. I never used to be a big fan of his, until I watched him hosting 8 out of 10 cats, along with Sean Lock (another comedian I'd love to see in a live show). Jimmy Carr's fantastic deadpan approach I find hysterical.
Tuesday morning, 3:15am, house alarm goes off. Thinking that my 2 year old son has tripped the alarm again by going downstairs (which he's done before), I wander downstairs. As I open the living room door, I see two burglars in the kitchen. Well, I (as anyone would) run towards them, yelling all manner of things... They, of course, decide to make a quick exit. A tussle occurs between one of them and myself, resulting in a minor screwdriver stab to my upper arm. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they bolt over the garden fence, and are gone.
Turns out that I'd left the patio doors unlocked, which I never usually do, and they'd been a couple of scally chancers who had been trying the houses on the off chance that someone (like me) had left a door or a window open. Actually, one of the burglars had reminded me of the fact when they were leaving, shouting "Remember to lock your doors in future!". Fantastic, community safety advice from burglars.....
Anyway, a visit or two from C.I.D., uniformed police officers and a forensic officer taking prints, and I'm back to normal again. I'm not going to deny that it was a scary experience, but at the time (with your family in the house with you), the adrenalin starts pumping and you don't really think about the threat, all you're concerned about is getting them out as quickly as possible.
On a lighter note, I went to see my daughter's nursery graduation today. That's right, today is her official last day before she starts school in september. It was also my son's last day as well, since he's moving to a different nursery in september, so it's all change. It was very emotional. The staff always get emotional, which you expect, since they've known the kids for over two years, most of them for most of each week, and then they go off to start whichever school they've managed to get in. My wife and I certainly got emotional, since it's very much the end of an era. As much as I know they're going to enjoy school and the new nursery, I'm going to miss that nursery. It's a lovely place, the staff are great, and it's a place which I've seen my kids develop from being babies to being young, confident children.
On the viewing front, I watched Jimmy Carr's 2005 stand up show Stand Up 2005. Yes, I agree, imaginatively titled.
Anyway, what a funny guy. I never used to be a big fan of his, until I watched him hosting 8 out of 10 cats, along with Sean Lock (another comedian I'd love to see in a live show). Jimmy Carr's fantastic deadpan approach I find hysterical.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Givin' it both barrels...
I've blogged about this before in a previous blog incarnation, but I've just re-watched Al Murray's Givin' it both barrels on DVD. I'd forgotten just how amazingly funny he is, and how so refreshingly politically incorrect.
One of my favourite lines (amongst the ones that I can actually blog about!) is "Look at Switzerland, what an unfortunate position they've got themselves in.... France to the left, Austria to the right, Germany above and Italy below them.... you'd never sell that flat would you?"... Class.
One of my favourite lines (amongst the ones that I can actually blog about!) is "Look at Switzerland, what an unfortunate position they've got themselves in.... France to the left, Austria to the right, Germany above and Italy below them.... you'd never sell that flat would you?"... Class.
technorati tags:Pub, Landlord, Al, Murray
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Saturday, July 14, 2007
Going to the zoo....
Haven't blogged much recently, so thought I'd just waffle on about the wonderful day we had today. Took the kids to Blackpool Zoo, with a preconception of rain all day. However, by about 11am, we had glorious sunshine, and it lasted all day. Also, it's been a while since I've been up there, but what a change! Pretty much the whole zoo has had a complete makeover, a fantastic new entrance facility and a new dinosaur section (obviously, not real dinosaurs, that'd be quite a catch!). Well worth going to see, and it's definitely a full day out. True enough, it's not as big as Chester Zoo, but it's still amazing. One thing to definitely see is Amazonia, a free-roaming monkey enclosure next to the elephant house. Entering the doors, you are greeted by a great number of squirrel monkeys all jumping from one side of the path to another, jumping on your pram (if you have one) and attempting to steal things from pockets! One of the staff commented how a few weeks earlier, someone brought a newborn baby into the enclosure, and one of the squirrel monkeys jumped into the pram, took the baby's dummy (pacifier, for the non-UK reader) and made off with it! Funny to look back on, but not funny at the time, I bet! ;-) What an amazing day, though, and certainly a trip that I will be re-doing very soon.
technorati tags:blackpool, zoo
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Friday, July 13, 2007
Untitled
Well, the observant amongst you may have noticed that my fortean / heritage site, strangehub.co.uk went live yesterday. Log on and have a look, give me your comments. I'd love to get any feedback / ideas about possible additions, etc.
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