I Love the smell of Estrogen In the Morning!

by | Mar 26, 2010 | Twitter, Office

WOW.

Its all I can say, WOW.

I am experiencing a mixture of 60% Shock and 40% Anger, With a small sprinkling of Homicidal Tendencies on top.

I’d not seen the Governor all day in the Asylum.  I’d heard slight grumblings coming from down the corridor but that was it.  You see one of the Support Drones has not been doing his job fully, and it had been spotted while he was on holiday for a week.  And everyone else had run around sorting it all out (Without anything really being said to the drone.) Hence Grumblings.

Towards the end of the day, The Governor storms into my Cell screaming “Wheres this website!” “I’ve given you a long rain of time for it, I need it now“. Most people would have opened with a hello, or the question asked in a normal voice, not at full rage decibels.

Now, I’ve not worked on a major web project since I left the Development department three years ago, So I’m rusty. I should also point out that the website needing the overhaul was written by someone learning PHP badly at the time. Each page needs about 25 separate files of code to work, and DIV tags are spread over several files. Its a mess, and the work being done must not change the look and feel of site. Oh, and after the site was finished it had a lot of work done to it by another person with limited PHP knowledge. I digress.

So I’m rusty, it’s not an easy site, still it’s not impossible to do. Apart from the fact that I get disturbed a dozen times a day on average to help the Support Drones with problems with the ISP part of the company, or The Windows server admin wanting help with something, Or the Linux admin is working on something and wants some scripts altering to help him out, or improve something. Or the development department is bust so needs help, Or customers need help, Or the Governor needs stuff looking up or doing.

After each interruption I have lost my place on the project, and cant remember what I was doing, So I have to delete the stuff I was typing and start again. This week for example I managed about four hours of usable work on this Project.

This on top of the slight Depression I feel by not actually having a defined role in the Asylum. The Linux SysAdmin looks after the Linux Servers (Theres a lot of them), ICT Engineer only does ICT work, Developer only does development, Support guys only do support. I do, Support, Development, windows sysadmin, linux sysadmin backup work, internal development, bt development, question answering/help for all other departments, out of hours emergency support when linux sysadmin unreachable, I cover every department when they have staff people on holiday.

And they wonder a web project takes a bit longer to do than a dedicated web developer would take?

I can never finish any project, I start one, get a week working on it if i am very very lucky, then I’m given another project, and another.

I really feel like I will snap at any point. And being screamed at as the opening question of “is the website finished yet” really does not help.

I will admit that after that incident I may have vented slightly. I posted a Tweet on my Private, None Work based, None Linked to Work Twitter account thus :-

Given a web project, constantly pulled off to do other urgent jobs and get screamed at asking why web project not finished.

Only The Governor follows my Twitter account, So I get another ballistic explosion, of how he’s under pressure and how do i think it makes him feel to see a posting like that? err. probably no where near as bad as being the person screamed at for no reason? And I can remove that tweet or get sacked.

So I have decided to separate my personal “Social Networking” with my Current Employment. Since I feel I should be allowed to vent whatever I want on line as long as no names, or company names are mentioned.  It’s a hell of a lot healthier for everyone for anonymous on line venting, than holding the anger in, snapping, and going on a psychopathic killing spree in the office with a philips headed screwdriver.

Never send a boy to do a woman’s job.

by | Mar 24, 2010 | Geek, Holiday, Hacks

Today is “Ada Lovelace Day“.

It is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do.

I decided to take part in helping to promote the achievements of women in fields they do not normally get the credit the deserve in.   Deciding to take part was easy, its the actual doing something about it that’s hard. I have spent the last four hours trying to decide who to write about.

Its easy to say “I was not influenced or inspired by particular woman to the point I can post about it“, Yet the more I consider it, the more stupid that statement is. Part of my job entails writing Programs, Scripts, etc. And The first computer Programmer was a lady, and a Lady lady at that. Lady Ada Lovelace (Who today’s named after.)

So who to pick? I then considered maybe using a Character from TV/Film that’s a role model showing you can be cool, feminine, and geeky. Only I could not decide on one of them, either. I have decided to face the fact that I’m useless.

So Instead I will just Raise a pint, and tip my hat to a lost community. “Female Hackers”

Raven Alder, a network administrator at Maryland-based company Intermedia, was utterly boggled by an unexpected question at a hacker convention where she’d just presented a paper. “A reporter asked me how it felt to be the world’s first female hacker,” she recalled. “What the hell?” she spluttered in response. She knew of many other women hackers at the conference, and she was certainly not the first. But the reporter’s question revealed the dilemma facing most women hackers today.

EvilGrrl, a member of the notorious GhettoHackers crew (who won Capture the Flag three years running at Defcon), has noticed this “not existing” problem too. “At conferences, lots of people assume I’m somebody’s girlfriend,” she said, laughing. “I usually just reply that I’m a GhettoHacker and no, I’m not a girlfriend.”

So lets all the Men take a step back, and take today to acknowledge our Female counterparts.

Any in the North Wales area let me know, I’ll get you a pint (or drink of choice)

NOTE: The Title of the Post is a quote from the Character “Acid Burn” from the film Hackers. I’ve never really considered it before, But she really is a poor example of Women in Technology. Looking back on the film, she was the only female in the hacking community shown. I believe in the clips at the end, where the worlds hackers unite, there’s possibly a female hacker shown. Amongst the main group and extended community she is the only one, The other female characters are mothers, or Bimbos. So I appologise, its just that I like the Character, Like the Quote, and Like the Young Angelina Jolie.

Pendragon Vs Productivity

by | Mar 19, 2010 | Holiday

Brief:

I am taking a week off work for two reasons :-

  1. I have 5.25 Holidays left to take before April 1st
  2. I have a Vast amount of stuff I’ve been putting off for ages

So I am going to try and get as much stuff done in my week off as I can.  To monitor my progress I have decided to keep this blog post open on my Desktop in “Draft” format, So I can see how I am doing.  I will Hit “Publish” either late Friday, or at the weekend.  So lets see if I can dampen my normal laziness and actually be productive.

I am making a list of things I want to do on my white-board, and crossing them off as I complete them. I’ll use this as a count of my productiveness [Tasks_Completed/Tasks_On_List]

Monday:

Start of Day [0/20]

Its now midday on the first day of my week long productivity. And I have so far spent the morning “Hacking” my Nintendo Wii. I should point out I only got the Wii Sunday, So I have owned it for less than 24 Hours. I will admit it has lots of possibilities. Only investigating them will prevent me doing the things I’ve already got planned for this week.  So its time to leave it alone for now. (Adding several more tasks to White-Board list).  I will do a separate post on hacking/tweaking the Nintendo Wii without compromising it. I will say the Wii does make a nice Media-Server. I will say this did not kill my day completely and I did manage to get some stuff done.

Tuesday:

Start of Day [4/29]

So I am very unlucky when it comes to trying to be organised. I woke up this morning, made myself breakfast and got half way through when I got a phone call off my mother. She wanted to take her dog to the Vet’s and since I was having a week off work, and the dogs too big for her to handle alone, Would I mind helping her. Being the Nice person I am, I agreed to go with her. That’s when I found out she was leaving at that second. Breakfast abandoned I help her get the dog in the car.

We arrive at the empty Veterinary surgery, Ten minutes early to find the place locked. So we ring the bell and wait. and wait. and wait. Several ring presses later, and almost half an hour I get fed up and phone the Vet’s myself. Turns out they moved twelve months ago. *Mutter* So struggle to get dog back in car, drive to the new location and repeat.  Vet says dog’s either not liking its food (Grown an intolerance to it, and to try a different kind) or has an ulcer. So tablets procured and back home we go.

That’s my morning gone so far!

The afternoon went a bit better, I decided to wash my car. Or as I described it on Twitter “I am checking if there is a car under the dirty & mud I drive back and too in” I will admit it took more work than I expected, There was dirt on top of mud on top of dirt. I did discover that my car is a green colour, with silver bits, and even writing in bits. The only bad timing was that the sun decided to make an appearance for the first time in a very very long time. and after washing the car for what seemed like hours under a burning sun, I’m now sore and shattered.

Wednesday

Start of Day [7/31]

I have noticed a worrying trend. The number on the right is growing much faster than the number on the left. I’m sure this is not right.

Today has started off a bit better so far, nothing has come along to distract me from my planned tasks. And my Car’s booked in for getting its new tires this afternoon, so Today should be productive. Especially since I may be God. You see I received an email this morning questioning my existence. To my knowledge the only ones who’s existence gets questioned by people is God, or Lucifer.

So far this morning has been more productive than the previous two days. Lets hope this continues into the afternoon. So that I can take a break to spend some time celebrating St Patrick’s day in the pub.

I went for new tyres finally. I wish places would let you make appointments, I spent almost an hour sitting about playing on my iPhone while I waited for my turn. I should not complain, since they messed up the order for my new tyres and the ones they had in stock were double the price of the ones I had ordered, so I got the more expensive ones for the price of the cheap ones. I also got a warranty with them for the lifetime of the tyres. If they break I get new ones for free. Sometimes things go well.

Thursday

Start of Day [13/33]

Ok. We are on a roll. The Right hand number is now increasing faster than the Left hand number. This week may turn out to be a success after all.

I’ve also managed to catch up on several movies I’ve had waiting for time to watch, among other things. So even with time set aside for TV, Films, Games, Etc. I have managed to be productive.  “Go Me!”

Friday

Start of Day [18/33]

OK. I admit it.

Today being the last day of my holiday I left the Productivity by the side of the road, and spent the biggest part of the day playing “Mass Effect” on the XBOX 360, and watching films. I know, its not what I had planned for the week, I just really needed a day off, before starting work again next week.

I did manage to get a few things sorted today, so it was not a total bust.

Results.

End of Week [25/33]

I may not have finished all the tasks on the list, but I did finish more tasks that I originally started with. (Five more). I should also point out that a further three of the tasks on the list have been started, and are just waiting for Monday morning before being finalised. So its a technical 28 completed tasks.

I think therefore that this week off I can safely say I was productive. I also seem to work better with a white-board full of jobs and the satisfaction of crossing them off as i complete them.  I may have to try this again some time.

Getting More from Your Wii

by | Mar 18, 2010 | Media, Wii, Hacks

This are many things you normally do with your Wii. You can play with it, Sing with it, Get fit with it. Lots of things.  But have you ever wanted to do MORE. get more fun with your Wii?

NOTE: Anyone here looking for water sports, please go away now. Unless you are a Good looking Female with an ENTP personality, who should send me her Photo + CV.

This post is about the Nintendo Wii, and how to get more from it.  The Ninja Temple got a Wii last weekend. Mainly to get Wii Fit and play the fun looking games with the Balance Board.  Only thing is, we have not yet got the board, only the Wii.  Within Twenty four hours of receiving the Wii in the post the immortal words were uttered. “Hummmmm! I wonder if we could use this as a media server to stream films/tv from the network?”

After these words were uttered all other projects were dropped and the Wii was studied and hacked/jailbroke/improved.  Here’s the process we used, in case anyone else out there wants to play media files on a Wii.

NOTE: This is only a “soft mod” you do not open the Wii at any point, or do any physical modifications to the device.

For this you will need 1xSD Card. (we used two cards to save time, but you only really need one).

You need your Wii connected to your wireless network. (You can do this with a none networked Wii, But networked is easier)

You will also need to download a few files off the internet and unzip them.

Phase 1: (Getting the Homebrew Channel)

The HomeBrew channel is a Wii channel that lets you run Applications & Software written by third party’s, extra applications, and games that are made available for you to use by people other than Nintendo.  It also helps for you launching Linux apps, or distro’s.  So before we can have fun we need to get this on the Wii.

FILE Pack 1: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.

  1. Download this pack, and extract the files onto your SD Card. (There should be three folders & four files)
  2. Place the SD Card into the Wii (The slots under the cover at the front.)
  3. Click on the SD Card Icon (Bottom Left), You should get a warning screen (Press OK), You get a black screen with disclaimer (Press 1 )
  4. You now should have a screen with three lines. Homebrew channel, which can be isntalled, DVDx, also can be installed, Bootmii, which possibly will give you an error. Install Homebrew Channel, DVDX. On bootmii option, select “prepare SD card“. After it finishes, install it as boot2 (if possible) or as an IOS.
  5. When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.

Phase 2: (Fixing the Nintendo Fix to Stop people doing what were doing)

You see, Nintendo did not like people getting full use of their Wii’s so the put a fake empty bit of code in the area most programmers use, this prevents “Other” code being fully run on the Wii. Well we say “Hack The Planet!” and fix this fix. :0)

FILE Pack 2: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.

  1. Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
  2. Place the SD Card into the Wii
  3. Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
  4. Wadmanager should start.(On ios select, select ios36
  5. Select SD card and (Press A).
  6. Select ios249 from wad folder and (Press A).
  7. change the action to “uninstall wad“, (Press A).
  8. When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.

Phase 3: (Adding cios)

You need this fix if you want to stream media over the Wii’s WiFi. or if you should want to play “Backup Games”

FILE Pack 3: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.

  1. Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
  2. Place the SD Card into the Wii
  3. Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
  4. At the beginning you should see ios249 highlighted. Keep pressing left on the wii pad until you see “Do not reload IOS” at the ios select screen, press A.
  5. If you have internet connection, select “Network install“, else select “SD card“, (Press A).
  6. When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.

Phase 4: (Setting up the final Card)

You are all finished now. You just need to set yourself up for day to day running of Apps. Oh and to add a media player. Basically you can place apps in a folder called apps on the SD Card and they become runnable from the HomeBrew Channel. To get you started :-

Format the SD Card and extract File Pack 1 back onto it. This one has a few applications already on it for Playing Back up Games and fixing a few bugs.

To get a media server on there, Just download and extract to the apps folder. I tried and liked two applications.

1) Geexbox Which is a multi platform media server. The only downside is that it can not access the Wii’s WiFi drivers so will only play of USB harddrives, or using a Wired Network connection. There is a Lite version that can use WiFi.

2)MPlayer CE Which is the one I’m using, It works from the box over the Wii’s WiFi. and plays a good amount of different file formats. And connects to local media, or network media using ftp, Windows Shares, SMB Shares.  You do have to edit the smb.conf in the MPlayer_CE folder to add up to 5 network shares (and optional passwords)

And its as easy as that. You can go from Taking a Wii out the box, to having it up and running as a full media server in less than an hour.

Happy Hacking.

P.S. The password for the files listed is: www.wiihacks.com

Technology 1:Old Skool 0

by | Mar 10, 2010 | Freemasonary, iPhone

Last night was LOI. And it was a good evening, well OK. It was a good evening apart from a case of “Too many cooks spoil the broth!” which I may talk about in a different post. Someone remind me about it.

Just before the end of the evening (We were doing a 1st) during the bit where the W.M. gives the Candidate the normal documents, one of the P.M.’s who is a Mentor at one of the Lodges who make up the LOI stands up to inform us of recent changes, that require “NEW & IMPROVED” words to be added there. He opens his magical book that no one else has to show the words, and suggests that everyone write them down for further use.

So at the close of the evening there were roughly thirteen people trying to make a note of a couple of pages of writing. The only problem was, no one was prepared.  So between them they were able to find a semi-functioning pen, and a small piece of torn paper they found under a bench (Approx. one inch square).  In other words they were stuck.

At this point I wonder over to where they are gathered, unlock my iPhone, load the PDFscanner app and quickly scan the two pages of text. Convert them into a PDF document, and email it to several people who’s email addresses I have on me.

You know. Sometimes Technology just Rocks!