Author Topic: Fettled any computer stuff today?  (Read 214119 times)

Biggsy

  • A bodge too far
  • Twit @iceblinker
    • My stuff on eBay
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #25 on: 14 January, 2014, 10:52:36 pm »
You'll get working keys off ebay from traders with plenty of good feedback for the same product.  I've bought several XP and W7 ones over the years, as well as the W8.

●●●  My eBay items  ●●●  Twitter  ●●●

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #26 on: 14 January, 2014, 10:54:46 pm »
The bloody stupid thing set the clock an hour slow without me realising.  I'm missing Celebrity Bake Off!

Not all bad then  :D

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #27 on: 14 January, 2014, 11:28:51 pm »
I find it unproductive to play availability games. My availability is what Outlook says it is. You can request any free time. If I need time then I block it out.

I do tend to negotiate meetings as it takes us 15 minutes each way to get to most parts of campus and longer for some areas - it's not always clear who is where cos we're so spread out on a massive campus.  Also it allows us to negotiate where to meet, cos sometimes usually I go to academics in their offices whereas for tech stuff I usually get folk to come to me cos I have assistive tech on my computer and everything set up for demo and my colleague has JAWS (screenreader) which is useful to demo. 

It's a shame cos there's a lot of useful outlook features we simply don't use which would save time... But no one strongly pushes IT training so everyone stays ignorant.

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #28 on: 15 January, 2014, 10:56:01 am »
Meetings are always open to negotiation - it is the 'which day are you available?' palaver that is unproductive. It can be made quite clear that if you want a meeting in your office then there will need to be travel time included. The meeting request at a particular time is the start of negotiation - sorting out the detail - rather than the messing around with trying to work out which day and then discovering by the time a decision is made that the time has become unavailable for some.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #29 on: 15 January, 2014, 03:31:53 pm »
Just installing vim on the recently linuxed box.

Ahhhh.
That's better.

:)

Dibdib

  • Fat'n'slow
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #30 on: 15 January, 2014, 10:55:51 pm »
Tinkering with a bit of Python to do some very simple scripting - just iterating over a GPX file, grabbing a bunch of StreetView images and stitching them together in FFMPEG.

I didn't realise how rusty my coding skills were. It's embarrassing. Most of it is still a series of comments in place of things still to do, but there is some real code in there too.

Oh, and in Nano because I'm a child and emacs/vi is too hard.




Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #31 on: 16 January, 2014, 02:23:49 am »
I've never used Python but I've installed it on the Gentoo box as to have a play with it at some point.

I've just got Apache 2.4.7 working on the Gentoo box. This was a slight ball ache. The modules and configuration included by default mean that it doesn't work out of the can. 3 hours of adding modules and fiddling around all to get a page served by the server which says "it works"



Next step is getting PHP working.
Edit: PHP was a cinch. Best get some sleep and then try configuring multiple virtual hosts and installing a wordpress instance in the morning.

Further edit:I've managed to get APACHE running five virtual hosts. I then installed/configured vsftpd with one secured ftp user whih is chrooted and authenticated using SSL.

The apache configuration just needs shoring up security wise and then the web servers ready to go public facing. That can wait - I just need to press on with some development work now.

CommuteTooFar

  • Inadequate Randonneur
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #32 on: 17 January, 2014, 01:42:14 pm »
I changed the cables on my desktop switch. I used to have a rainbow of cables making it easy to see which cable was going to which computer. A company policy decided that all data cables must be blue so now I only have blue cables.  To make thinks worse my old cables were just the right length and the new ones are all 3m long so the furthest run is fine but the closest has coils of cable.

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #33 on: 17 January, 2014, 02:01:15 pm »
I built a computer lab some years ago where all cables were a different colour and the length was determined by the length required. Very convenient.

Can you use coloured bands on the cable ends to identify them?
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #34 on: 17 January, 2014, 02:14:11 pm »
It doesn't really matter what you do to organise cables.  Entropy always wins, unless they're not being used.

Biggsy

  • A bodge too far
  • Twit @iceblinker
    • My stuff on eBay
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #35 on: 17 January, 2014, 02:24:46 pm »
Blue should be saved for USB 3!   :D
●●●  My eBay items  ●●●  Twitter  ●●●

Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #36 on: 17 January, 2014, 11:15:58 pm »
It doesn't really matter what you do to organise cables.  Entropy always wins, unless they're not being used.


This!!


On the same note, I'm installing a network next week ... jumping in at the deep end as I've not wired an RJ45 socket in yonks.
I've spent half the day creating room layouts in Visio showing where each point is going to be.

And it seems like half the week ordering cable, connectors, back plates, face plates conduit and tools. At least I know all the cables will be the right length!

Also building a Win 2k12 Essentials server - sprung over a grand on Server hard disks.



And on the personal front, the Gentoo/Netbook/Webserver is now dishing up half a dozen websites. So that's apache pwned!

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #37 on: 17 January, 2014, 11:22:54 pm »
At least I know all the cables will be the right length! 1cm too short

"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #38 on: 17 January, 2014, 11:33:11 pm »
I broke my desktop, in a cunning ploy to force myself to reinstall the OS with something that's actually supported.

It's now mostly back to a useable state under Debian (Ubuntu goes obsolete slower than I can be arsed upgrading my computers).

Wondering why denyhosts doesn't seem to be doing anything.  It wasn't working on the Raspberry Pi either.  Is it broken?

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #39 on: 18 January, 2014, 10:39:48 pm »
I reinstated my old wireless hub and relegated the virgin superhub to the naughty step (modem mode). I now have wireless that behaves properly.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #40 on: 19 January, 2014, 10:45:33 am »
Wondering why denyhosts doesn't seem to be doing anything.  It wasn't working on the Raspberry Pi either.  Is it broken?

Yo diddly.
I didn't know denyhosts existed before you mentioned it. I've now installed it and tweaked it to work with vsftpd too. (..using FTPS..)
It sure enough is protecting the FTP/SSH ports, but no evidence of any syncing going on as yet.
I'll let you know if the situation changes.

Maverick

  • One of the rural idle
    • Twoberries
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #41 on: 21 January, 2014, 10:36:01 am »
Well, yesterday rather today. The iMac arrived on time late afternoon and I had cleared my commitments for the evening to set it up.
First job was to pull the 8GB ram it came with out and replace it with the 32GB I had bought from Crucial (£200 saved). Then plug in external drives and ethernet cable and turn on. A few set up screens later it asks me if I want to migrate settings from a backup or other Mac, I chose other Mac and fired up migration assistant on the Mini and clicked start. It tells me the operation will take 2 hours. Go and make the evening meal, eat it, a bit of social interaction with Mrs M and watch the news. Go back to the offfice and it says 20 mins to go so tidy things up a bit while it finishes. Once it has done and rebooted it tells me there is a problem with Adobe CC and then asks for passwords for Dropbox and a couple of other things. A quick trip to Adobe's website to download and install the CC desktop app and all is well. Turn it off, connect the 27" Dell monitor from the Mini and boot; it recognises the monitor and sets it up as an extended desktop automatically.
Spend the next hour organising the icons in launchpad and starting up various programmes to check all is well, nothing fails to work, it has cloned the Mini over with all the settings, software, registrations, files etc.. On one level this is pretty amazing on the other a bit disappointing - where's the fun in getting a new machine if you don't have to spend the entire night sorting it out to get everything working properly because you have deadline to meet the next day ::-)
Oh and it's pretty whizzy too. Just to try it out I loaded a couple of very big images (85cmx56cm @ 360dpi in uncompressed tif format, about 600Mb each) into both Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time and edited them and transferred them to Efex Pro and back. While it took a little time to do the copy and transfers (counted in seconds rather than minutes) it wasn't too bad - the Mini would grind to a complete halt for minutes (best to go off for a tea break while it got on with it) when I tried that. Screen is impressive too - no reflections at all and while not a professional graphics screen it'll be good enough for my needs.

Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #42 on: 22 January, 2014, 10:16:51 am »
Maverick,
Must admit I've a touch of envy.
I still have a Mac Mini on my virtual wish list.

Yesterday I drilled a lot of holes and learned how to make a patch cable.
Today I'm starting to set-up a server and running ethernet cables around the lower floors of a studio building.

Maverick

  • One of the rural idle
    • Twoberries
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #43 on: 22 January, 2014, 01:06:29 pm »
Maverick,
Must admit I've a touch of envy.
I still have a Mac Mini on my virtual wish list.

Yesterday I drilled a lot of holes and learned how to make a patch cable.
Today I'm starting to set-up a server and running ethernet cables around the lower floors of a studio building.

Sorry for that ;) My high spec mid 2011 Mac Mini is for sale here -> https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=79368.0 and I can throw in the Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse as new ones came with the iMac  :demon:

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #44 on: 23 January, 2014, 10:19:44 am »
New screen on the youngest's tablet. Works like new :)

Replacement screens - not all they're cracked up to be.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Afasoas

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #45 on: 23 January, 2014, 11:38:14 am »
Maverick,
Must admit I've a touch of envy.
I still have a Mac Mini on my virtual wish list.

Yesterday I drilled a lot of holes and learned how to make a patch cable.
Today I'm starting to set-up a server and running ethernet cables around the lower floors of a studio building.

Sorry for that ;) My high spec mid 2011 Mac Mini is for sale here -> https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=79368.0 and I can throw in the Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse as new ones came with the iMac  :demon:

As much as I'd quite like to indulge in some new shiny, I think the premium spec goes beyond my needs and budget. Hard to justify with the hunk of PC I'm running.

Still, tempting none-the-less....

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #46 on: 23 January, 2014, 02:59:53 pm »
Need a legal act from the latest Westlaw PDF in BIGFONT for a partially sighted student's exam. Student insists on print copies of VERYBIG which is going to be a navigation nightmare as the regular print act is 477 pages long and prints out to 1.5" thick and I don't see how we can repaginate it very well. 

Fortunately dept have agreed to tell us which bits stude is most likely to need as we'll provide electronic access to the WHOLE act and a reader human in the exam itself + 2-3x as long to do it in.

The PDF itself is pretty good, has proper bookmarking to navigate the sections and wossnames nicely.  Shame student won't use it cos that would be quickest and easiest...

I tried saving PDF out as Word in my Acrobat Pro but that loses all the styles (grrr) and if I 'select all' and enlarge epic formatting horridness happens. 

I then saved PDF out as HTML, and then was able to look at HTML in notepad++ and it had inline CSS for the styles in the document which I was able to link to the bits I want to change and those I don't using brain, Google fu to remind me of CSS. I cunningly added a comment in the HTML to tell me the 4 styles I care about for future me.

I then saved-as the HTML for each of the sections and deleted out all but the desired content from each using the PDF as my guide for each bit.   Each HTML file can be opened in a web browser and printed through that to Adobe PDF and I can generate a title sheet for each and stick that on the front.  Creating a small bunch of booklets the student can access quickly and easily in their desired font sizes. 

Friendly academic has checked content and is getting the student's feedback on layout/size before I do the remaining 7 or so sections and send over to dept.

Not my job, but I could do it faster than I could explain it to a nice but not techie admin person. And friendly academic is on board for being named in a "yes we'd like an alternative formats department PLS!" paper :)

And now I've typed this out in here I'll be able to refer back to it in future :)

Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #47 on: 27 January, 2014, 07:49:09 pm »
Hosted server decided to eat it's disks today. Probably a RAID controller firmware problem.

RAID 1 meant that it mirrored the corruption to the other disk leaving the whole thing useless.

Good excuse to move from a machine with HDDs in to one with SSDs in. Now restoring everything from backups (but there's quite a bit of manual configuration as I never got around to automating that with chef/puppet). Joy.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #48 on: 27 January, 2014, 08:23:48 pm »
RAID 1 meant that it mirrored the corruption to the other disk leaving the whole thing useless.

This is like the rule about expensive semiconductors blowing to protect fuses, I think.

woollypigs

  • Mr Peli
    • woollypigs
Re: Fettled any computer stuff today?
« Reply #49 on: 27 January, 2014, 09:01:38 pm »
Tying to do some home physics - as in splitting a four day old laptop from Yorkshire - you will love it here Peli does give generously when making tea - so I found the hard disk doing breast strokes in a bit of Yorkshire and a dash of milk, when I finally managed to crack the laptop open.

They don't make it half hard to take a laptop apart.
Current mood: AARRRGGGGHHHHH !!! #bollockstobrexit