Archives: January 2009

Jibba Jabber. Pt1

Jan30
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 30, 2009
Categories: Technology, Work
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

In the words of a Modern day philosopher :-

Mr. T “Got no time for the jibba jabba!”

Well the Governor of the Insane Asylum has decided the Inmates need a new communication system to cut down on the expense of plumbers to fix broken pipes from the current system of tapping on the heating pipes with a metal cup.

So an email was sent forth from the Governor asking peoples opinions on what Messaging system they prefer, and what do they like. Some of the responses are below :-

  • PostIt Notes (My suggestion)
  • ICQ
  • Skype
  • MSN/ICQ/AIM/Yahoo/ANy
  • Walking over to person and Talking. (another one of Mine)

Then As the debate got sillier and sillier, involving Walkie-Talkie radios and Zombie invasions, I decided on the following Insane idea.

I vote for a telnet talker, and bots running on all our servers so they talk on there as well telling us when they not feel well, so we get preemptive IM chat from the servers before they break.

OK, so its all just Banter amongst the Inmates, nothing serious, right?

Wrong, The Governor comes to visit me in my nice padded room all happy and excited.. “I love your idea, can we really do that? it would be brilliant, I’ll let everyone know we going for our own IM system”

So I’m now looking at an install of Jabberd2 on one of our servers, getting a series of clients to recommend for Linux, windows, iPhone, and getting all Inmates onto one locked down system.  Before getting our monitoring software to talk using it, and then making mini-AI’s for all our servers.

Oh and a support account to run from a widget on our customer only website…..

Its a good Job I am brilliant!!

CN

No Comments

Have you ever been stuck in a revolving door.

Jan28
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 28, 2009
Categories: Office
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

OK. Over at the Techno Insane Asylum we have a small problem. Our Windows Systems Administrator has left, and left our windows servers in a bit of a state. So we need some urgent work doing, to rectify about 6 years worth of neglect…

Now our biggest problem is, no ones been appointed the new systems administrator, so currently theres even less work being done than there was. Now this has recently come to a head as an important customer has requested a service we cant currently provide without some urgent work.

So we’ve had a couple of meetings now to try and sort out whats needed, and in what order they need doing. and when we can do them, the only thing we have not discussed is, getting a Windows System Administrator to do the work…

So todays meeting went along the lines of working out what was needed, The director chairing the meeting then decided the best thing we could do to quickly get ourselves up to speed, was to ignore the half dozen or so windows servers we have out in the field and deploy a Windows 2008 server, fully up to date, to meet our customers needs. So we can put the other stuff on the back bone.. All sorted and decided..

Now, we just need a windows administrator to build the 2008 server (which no one in the asylum has ever used) so we can get it out and running to save us having to pick a windows administrator….

At this point in the meeting (after checking I was not armed and able to put them out of my misery) I retreated into my own little world…

No Comments

You know its going to be a bad day when…..

Jan26
by GothNinja
Published on: January 26, 2009
Categories: Travel, Work
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

Your there warm and comfortable in bed, semi awake, at peace with the world. Then.

AWOOGA AWOOGA AWOOGA

alarm-clock-ringing

“Mutter, WTF!!! arrghhh… Whys my alarm going off on a Sunday morning.!“

Grab phone, silence alarm, and stare at phone in accusation, how dare it wake me up on a Sunday, Why do i have an actual sound of an alarm as my wake up noise, and more important, why is my phone saying its Monday??

“I was installing stuff on it last night, Have I reset the date/time? what have I done now? stupid thing!……. err hang, wasnt it Sunday yesterday, which means its Monday today. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

So far, Things are not looking auspicious for a good day. But look on the bright side, good foot forward, and on for the day!

Then there was the commute into work, which is normally a nice trip in, but not today. No, Today I get hit with several sets of roadworks, tractors, JCB’s and for half the trip fog making visibility down to 2 meters, so everyone travels at 10mph……….

I hate Mondays!

No Comments

I know you’re a sweet little Jailbreaker

Jan21
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 21, 2009
Categories: Hacks, iPhone
Tags: ,
Comments: 4 Comments
avatar

All together now…

You know you’re a sweet little codemaker
Oh yeah
And I know you’re a sweet little jailbreaker
I know you are, baby!

I made up my mind
Tired of wasting all my precious time
You’ve got to be all mine, all mine
Oh, foxy lady!

(Jimi Hendrix – Foxy Lady)

This post is best read while listening to “Foxy Lady” By Hendrix…

OK, So I have had my nice new iPhone for a month now, so that’s long enough to keep it new and work out how to use it, so its now time to JailBreak the sucker and get some Linux functionality on there.

So. I’m armerd with the following :-

iphone

  1. An Apple 3G 16Gig iPhone
  2. A usb link cable
  3. QuickPwn
  4. Some Cans of Beer
  5. A low boredom threshold.

So Lets begin.

Step 1: Open can, and pour drink into a pint glass (I’m civilized you know). Plug iphone into computer and back it all up using itunes.

Step 2: Run QuickPwn, and follow the helpfull instructions, Open Can and drink beer (OK, we doing techy stuff now, ignore niceties like glasses it gets in the way)

Step 3: Reboot iPhone with all your fingers crossed, Grab another Drink while waiting……… “Please Come Back UP!”

Step 4: Unplug JailBroken iphone, and start adding sshd, Linux commands, and useful applications.

Step 5: Finish off the beers while watching NCIS… Why Do I never meet Geeks like Abby!!!

CN

4 Comments

Alternative Alternator

Jan21
by GothNinja
Published on: January 21, 2009
Categories: Vehicles
Tags:
Comments: 2 Comments
avatar

A Bit of Background…

MONDAY: Well the battery warning light on my car stayed on slightly longer than you’d want on the morning’s commute to work, and stayed on at any point i was under2k RPM on the way home.  So I thought “Ahhhh! somethings up! Must get that looked at” Probably the Alternator…

TUESDAY: OK. Battery light on almost permanently now unless I am flooring it! Alternator, defiantly gone, must pop by garage tomorrow…

WEDNESDAY: to quote a famous film ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!‘ Jumped in car to shoot to work, with plan to drop car of at garage on way and Derrrrr, Derrr, *nothing* Battery flat as a very flat thing that’s been jumped on by a obese elephant.

So… Easily fixed, phone up my Dad to pop by with jump leads, jump start the car and take to garage for repair, what could go wrong? what could go wrong!

1) Phone up all the local auto-elec’s and garages to get best quote and see who’s got parts. Several say they can order part, may take a while to get in and it’ll bet about £200+VAT.

2) Phone up a place that only sells Motors & Alternators. These guys inform me that For my type of vehicle it could be one of 2 types of alternator. Up to the year before my car its Type1 from the year after my car its Type2.For my exact year of car, They don’t exist! (Why did i say “What could go wrong“)

3) Phone up the people who actually MAKE the alternator. Ok we getting somewhere, these guys admit the alternator exists (A Start) but they don’t actually have any in stock, and will not be getting any for the foreseeable future!

ARGGHHHHH!!!! why is nothing easy! what could go wrong?

Luckily there’s a local place that repair motors, and play about with such things, So Stripped the engine to get the alternator out (Bloody thing also runs power steering, servo breaks, oil pump, most the engine is plugged into the alternator) shoot it to this place, and cross fingers they can repair it………. 4hours later, I have a reconditioned & repaired Alternator for £50.

I’m back on the Road…

2 Comments

Tech Support – How Can We Help You?

Jan16
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 16, 2009
Categories: Customers
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

Every so often I like to entertain myself by logging into the Support system and scanning the pending requests. And Occasionally offering words of wisdom to the support technicians.I just spotted this one and thought I would share (personal details ***d out for security).

PLEASE RESOLVE THE PROBLEM OF MY RECEIVING EMAIL

FROM MY ****@*****.**.** from PARTIES I REGARD AS UNDESIRABLE AND COULD
BE DANGEROUS.

Many thanks
*****

My Suggestion would be to turn off her email account, that way noone can mail her, I could send her a sensible sugestion on spam filtering, black/white listing, and such, But alas I think I’m dangerous and she requests no emails from any undesirable and dangerous people.

CN

No Comments

Blog V3

Jan15
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 15, 2009
Categories: Blog, Technology
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

Well that was the shortest lived Blog ever in the history of the blogosphere!

Allow me to explain. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin!

The blog V2 was up and running, GothNinja had imported his old Livejournal entries, and everything was all speed ahead, And *Crash!* did nobody spot the iceberg?

Basically my “new and improved” hosting providers had technical glitches, and three times in as many days all work was lost as they went to backups. And all new posts were lost, This was on top of random outtages in accesing the server.

So after some research a New New and Improved server was procured and the blog was given a new lease of life. Hopefully this time we will be staying put.

CN

No Comments

Mobile Blogging

Jan12
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 12, 2009
Categories: Blog, Geek, Technology
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

As it says in the bible “the geek will inherit the earth”

Blogging using application on iPhone as test.

No Comments

Busby Pt. 6

Jan09
by CodeNinja
Published on: January 9, 2009
Categories: Customers
Tags: ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

Now as you are aware I have not broke Busbys systems since going live with the project, I was thinking it was all flowing well and they had got “used” to me now, so end of all problems…

Then came the Xmas shutdown period, and I came back to work tried to log into the Busby firewall with me Actividentity card, and eye scan, DNA tests, etc only to get told “Account Disabled“? Moi? Account Disabled, do they not know who I am?

So i drop an email to my contacts there asking wtf? and after my main technical contact tried everything he was capable off he admitted defeat and passed the problem up the food chain to the Sys.Admin. Which was nice of him… Then 30 minutes later I get an email from said Admin, along the lines of!

“We do not deal with user account problems, please go phone the normal customer helpline.”

Use the normal helpline, that the average mortal off the street would use? Do they not know who I am? We’ll see about that.

A further 30 minutes later and i get a phone call from the sys.admin who sent me the email.

“Hi, yes Our Boss was in a meeting earlier, and just popped in, err it seems we are authorised to help you with your problem, and err she asked could we do it as a priority, so ignore my earlier email, I’ll get it all sorted for you”

Harmony has returned to the Universe, Moi? The CodeNinje a mear mortal? I dont think so.. ;o)

See dear Reader, It may sometimes be “what you know” but its always “Who you know”

CN

No Comments

Livejournal

Jan08
by GothNinja
Published on: January 8, 2009
Categories: LiveJournal, Technology
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
avatar

livejournal_logo

I was reading on t’interweb about the Russian owners of Livejournal laying off most of its staff without any severance packages, and since all of these people are in the technical area, leaving only sales people left its a bit of an interesting time.

So being a IT person and therefore a BIG advocate of   decided I better back up my data. For those of you interested in such things, or wishing to back up your own data i suggest a program called ljarchive.  It is a good idea as you may have years worth of memories you may loose.

Now, I sat there with my back up of several years of pointless drivel from Livejournal, and my shiny new blog V2, in two different windows on my Laptop, when insperation hit. Where better to store a backup of my old blog, but in the archives of the new blog?

So, quick import of data from the ljarchive file, a tweak on posting info, and bob’s your great uncle.  And this blog suddenly backdates several years.

No Comments
page 1 of 2»
Archive


January 2009
M T W T F S S
« Dec   Feb »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  


Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@The3Ninjas


Review this blog on Bloggers.com

Three Ninjas Store


My Little Welsh Button
My Little Welsh Mug
I Survived Friday 13th 2012 Keychain
I Survived Friday 13th 2012 Button
My Little Welsh Sticker
I Survived Friday 13th 2012 T Shirts
My Little Welsh Keychain
My Little Welsh Magnet



Recent Posts
  • I do not think it means wha… by GothNinja

    So the press is reporting on “Frankenburger” The worlds first test-tube burger. And how it could revolutionise the food industry, bring an end to world famines (Although how many third world citizens can afford the $200,000 per burger cost I don’t know) and even be eatable by animal lovers. Others [...]

  • MEME: Tech Support by GothNinja
  • The 6 Nations 2012 - Update by GothNinja

    Yes. WALES is top of the 6 Nations table!!!! OK. OK. Yes I know the table in its current layout is due to Frances second game being called off, and that they have only played one game so far. But! Wales are currently top of the table and that all [...]

  • People are Stupid. by CodeNinja

    Well technically I guess that should be “Customers are Stupid“. You do not believe me? Well here are two examples that happened this week. Example 1: I was being nice and answered the phone to help out the support guys, and the conversation went a bit like this :- CN: [...]

  • The 6 Nations 2012 by GothNinja

    Well its that time of the year again when the six nations rugby kicks off, with the time honoured grudge match between the old enemies “Wales & England” For those who have not heard of it, The Six Nations is an international Rugby Championship between Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, France [...]

  • The Chair of DOOM! by GothNinja

    CR: “Chair of DOOM?“ GN: “OK, maybe “Chair of DOOM!” is a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it does have a much better ring than “Chair of Nerves“. Oh, Now i think of it “Chair of Terror” would be a much better title.” CR: “Then Why dont you change it?“ [...]

  • 12 in 12 - Month1 by GothNinja
    This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series 12 in 12

    Greetings. Well I guess if I intend to stick to this 12 in 12 challenge I really should keep track of how I am doing. Or I will just wait until the end of December and just go “I did stuff!! go me!!!” So I will try and keep a [...]

  • CELEBRATION: Happy * (Inser… by MindNinja

    ~: Imbolc, Imbolig, Imbolic, Candlemas, Oimealg, Briganatia, Lupercus, Disting, Lupercalia Whatever your Path/Religion/Non-Religion views are, I wish you well at this time of year. Thig an nathair as an toll Là donn Brìde, Ged robh trì troighean dhen t-sneachd Air leac an làir. “The serpent will come from the hole [...]

  • 12 in 12 - The List. by GothNinja
    This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series 12 in 12

    Greetings & Salutations Dear Reader. I have finally sorted out my list of 12 challenges for the 12 months of 2012. The List. (More details given below the list). Blog Post’s: Write at least one post a week for the whole year. New Car: Get a new Car. Hosting: Move [...]

  • SOPA/PIPA Blackout by CodeNinja

    Just a quick note to mention that this site will be joining in the SOPA/PIPA Blackout tomorrow (18th Jan 2012) We must all do our bits no matter how small to stop this insanity becoming law! The Three-Ninjas Staff, CN

Categories
Recent Comments
Welcome , today is Wednesday, February 22, 2012