by CodeNinja | Mar 24, 2011 | Hacks, Tablet
The latest toy useful tool at the Ninja Temple is a nice little 7inch Android tablet. Now, being new to the Android OS, it was not long before the question was raised. “Is it as easy to Root a ‘Droid as it is to Jailbreak an iPhone?”
It was not long after this question was asked that we put life & limb on the line (well we risked bricking the new toy tool) to find out the answer. For those of you interested its Stupidly easy.
This is a walk-through of how we rooted out 7inch scroll tablet (and unlike the iPhone Walk-through no beer was involved).
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by CodeNinja | Feb 15, 2011 | Technology
So Yesterday I noticed my Windows machine was misbehaving a “tad bit” and as such could no longer collect or send emails, or properly access webpages. Now this is not a major problem as my primary machine is Linux, and I keep the windows one for testing & game playing reasons. So I decided to reboot the machine since it had been up and running solidly for a month or so. As I selected reboot, I was asked did I mind it doing some updates? “Whats the worst that can happen?” I thought, and agreed.
Updating 1 of 67
OK. Maybe I should update the machine more often? Ah well, what can you do? What I did was read for the hour it took for the full 67 updates to be applied and the machine to reboot. Upon rebooting I attempted to log in, only for windows to hang at the “loading your preferences” screen. I tried multiple reboots, multiple accounts to try and access the machine every attempted failed. I then had to spend four hours bouncing in and out of safe mode trying to find the actual error, and repair it.
Now my machine is back up and running, I have decided NEVER AGAIN! no more updates for me, its not worth the hassle!
by CodeNinja | Feb 11, 2011 | Technology
Recently we have been noticing the ADSL router at the Ninja Temple has needed rebooting on a more regular bases. At first we thought nothing much of this since its often needed rebooting in the past. The full nature of the reboots were not realised until the several people who have been rebooting/reconnecting the gateway to the Interwebs got together and mentioned they had been doing it more often. At this point it was realised that something was not right.
Now the Insane Asylum provides the ADSL connection to the Ninja Temple, so I logged into the console and checked our connections. And according to the logs we were having a maximum uptime of five minutes, and a average uptime of fifty seconds. With this info to hand, a fault check request was sent in. and this reply was received.
BTW cannot progress this fault as the root cause is the PSTN failure. Please report to your Copper Line Service Provider.ff
KBD test completed, expires at 12:10
The Copper Line test has failed (LN). Openreach network fault found.
OK. So its a BT fault, not a problem as we also have a partners console with them. Fault logged with BT on the business line. The waiting game then began. Twenty Four hours later and we are up to the point where “An engineer is needed to check local network, we’ll let you know when we have an estimated date” So Our best guess is Interweb Services from the Ninja Towers will resume at some point this year.
Watch This Space.
by CodeNinja | Jan 14, 2011 | Work
I know “Red Tape” is often required, and there are sometimes valid reasons for having it, but the people with the tape should have the sense to spot when they fall into a recursive loop and have the ability to produce “The Scissors of Doom” to sort things out. Let me give you an example, and its a real life example. I know because it happened to me, earlier this week.
Phone Conversation over BETA testing some new Busby servers/systems
Busby: “Can you confirm you can connect to the server fine?“
CN: “Yes, I confirm that, and i sent in signed form saying so.“
Busby: “Good. Can you confirm you downloaded our test file ok?“
CN: “What’s the file name, I’ll grab it now. I’ve been using your new systems for other departments, so the server area is full of files.“
Busby: “Our systems team say since you are already using the system there is no test file.“
CN: “ok“
Busby: “So can you confirm you downloaded our test file?“
CN: “But there is no test file?“
Busby: “You need to download our test file to show you can connect OK then we can move on.”
CN: “Talk to you main sys.admin. I tested connection to your server when you first set it up. I helped with the speed tests with the different secure connections, and port ranges. I was one of the first non Busby people using the system.“
Busby: “So can you confirm you downloaded our test file?“
CN: “ARGGHHHHHH!”
by CodeNinja | Dec 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
Today at the Asylum we lost the interwebz for a reasonable length of time. And everyone looked confused over what to do, while those with iPhones tried to grab bits of the net to hug and pet, and remember the good times.
This led to the question being asked “what did we do before the Internet”
Suggestion 1 was read. Err I read ebooks these days that I store online till I need them
Suggestion 2 was chat to people but with every flavour of I’m down how could we chat. And how exactly do you LOL or use smilies without a keyboard?
Suggestion 3 was write. Apparently with pen and paper?. Then you would put the letters inside other bits of paper and write someone’s name on it and drop it in a box. A box on the side of the road?. Some people would come along then and take it to whoever’s name you wrote on the envelope? It could take days to get there, if it got there at all. Well without ip’s or mx records no wonder it would take so long.
So there you have it, in these days of working online, using cloud services, VoIP phones, emails, even IM for internal communication, the average office worker is lost and unable to be productive without the Internet.
Personally I was scanning the area for unsecured wifi to deal with my addiction.
