barnskiblog

I've been using SmoothWall for a long time now; we have several deployments of the corporate product at work, but at home I use the Open Source Express version. It's a solid, Linux-based firewall with a friendly web UI to manage it - you don't need any Linux skills to use it.

Anyway, Update 8 came out early in April and I just got round to patching a SmoothWall Express that was in need of updating. All was fine, except that the machine shut down rather than rebooting after I applied the patch, and I'm pretty sure I did hit the reboot button. Might be a bug in the patch process, or might be me being a muppet, but could be a pain if you're applying Update 8 to a remote machine.

Have recently completed my first restore of an entire computer using a Time Machine backup disk, and I have to say that (unsurprisingly), Apple have got this sewn up much better than the competition.

The issue was a failed hard disk. As I often have to explain; hard disks are mechanical devices with spinning parts, bearings, magnetic surfaces and moving arms inside. Sooner or later, they tend to go wrong. This is why you need backups.

Apple OS X offers Time Machine; a mechanism for performing automatic, regular backups to an external hard disk. This is better than Windows' Shadow Copy, which creates "restore points" on the internal disk, as we'll see.

In the situation I was facing, the hard disk in a MacBook had died. Click click clunk. Fortunately, the user had followed some sage advice and used an external hard disk for Time Machine backups. This is where Apple's solution is superior; Windows Restore Points would have been no use at all here, as they'd have been lost with the internal hard disk.

So, we replaced the failed disk in the laptop with a new, bigger, faster model. This is not uncommon; the old disk was maybe 3.5 years old, and disk technology moves on in that sort of time frame.

Next, we booted from an install DVD and used Disk Utility to partition and format the new disk before selecting to restore from a Time Machine backup. Follow the wizard, connect the backup hard disk and let it run for a few hours.

And this is really why I'm posting; it didn't work smoothly. After the restore had finished, we were prompted to reboot. System duly restarts, and then hangs at the "grey" bootup screen with the little spinner going.

I was gutted; this should "just work". My hunch is that the change in hard disk hardware somehow confused the process; Apple - please fix this!! - anyone with a failed disk will replace it with a bigger, better unit.

The solution was to perform a re-install of OS X. Note that in Snow Leopard, there is no longer an "Archive and Install" option; you just install over the top of what you have, and trust it to do the right thing. Once OS X had been re-installed, the laptop booted up with all data and settings from the restore present and correct.

The final step was then to download and apply the latest combo update for 10.6; the restore was from a 10.6.6 backup, but we were now back at 10.6 due to the OS X reinstall. After that, usual software updates to bring all up to date and we were back in business.

Before I'm accused of being a Mac zealot or Microsoft basher, I'm not. I do believe that on the whole, Apple tend to make better consumer computer systems, and that the underpinnings of the software are much better in OS X than in Windows, but nothing is perfect. This is illustrated by the "Archive and Install" required above (and I have other Apple gripes, too).

However, this is another example of Apple getting it right. Yes, you can make restorable backups of Windows 7 on external disks, but this makes a "system image" that is separate and different from a "file backup". I also interpret the Windows solution to be creating a new compressed image file for each system image backup. That's using 50% of the space on your primary disk for each backup. Finally, to configure Windows backup and restore, you have to navigate through pages of wizard menus.

Just for completeness, Linux has always had rsync which can be used very effectively by the command-line script aficionado for incremental data backups, and there are a few GUI-based tools such as flyback that promise a simpler method, but as is often the case with Linux, it's just not quite feature-complete yet....... (although the implementation of sbackup on Ubuntu does look quite promising).

The beauty of Time Machine is that you plug in an external disk, are asked if you want to use it for backup and click yes. That's it. Hourly backups are taken and kept for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the last month and weekly backups until you run out of space (at which point the oldest backups are automatically deleted). If you use a laptop, just plug your backup drive in when you can, and backups will be taken. Since backups are incremental forever, you get a lot of restore points on a Time Machine disk (mine goes back a couple of years, for example). Best of all, it's not just restore points; you can restore your entire system from these backups, too. Oh, and there's a shiny UI for this as well, that makes restoring files engaging and understandable for the non-techie.

This is how it should be - backup protection made easy. The fact that an external disk is used is right - it protects you against internal hard drive failure (or a lost or stolen laptop). The fact that it's easy is also right - non techies can and will use it.

Just fix the re-install issue, please Apple…….

The Robin Hood Tax seems like a pretty good idea to me. Please take a look.

Our good friend is making some lovely jewellery. Her startup is Paperbag Design.

Good luck, Leesa!

I was on a course this week, and was one of three delegates. We all had to bring our own laptops; I use a Mac, one of the other guys was using Windows XP and the third guy was running Linux. This in itself was interesting; 5 years ago we would all have been on Windows. Clearly, a technical IT course is not going to be representative of market conditions in general, but:

a) Microsoft's strangle-hold on the O/S market is definitely slipping, and

b) Even at a techie course, Vista was not represented at all (the instructor was using a Linux VMware Server to host XP, 2003 and Linux VM's).

At work, we moved from Windows to OS X pretty much as soon as there was a viable virtualisation option to run Windows on Mac (we started with Parallels, but most of us now use VMware Fusion). We also all still believe it's the best choice - even the guys that switched to Mac for the first time as part of the change over now wouldn't go back to Windows.

As a result, I still have my old(ish) IBM ThinkPad - it used to be my work laptop and is now my backup should my trusty MacBook Pro ever be out of commission. It's a single-core Centrino jobber with 1.5GB RAM, a great keyboard and a pretty decently sized screen (even if it isn't widescreen). And yes, it says IBM and not Lenovo on the lid. I originally specced it with the idea that I'd run Linux as the primary O/S and use Windows VM's as required, but that never really worked out as Linux was always too lacking, despite me having tried various distributions.

Don't get me wrong; I love Linux, but configuring the WiFi adapter to connect to a WPA network was an unbelievable faff at the time, support for the 64MB ATI video adapter required some work, power management was questionable, etc. etc. I don't mind wrestling such problems when I have the time, but a work laptop needs to perform a set of tasks without getting in the way. If you have to fight your laptop network configuration for 10 minutes before you can get on with troubleshooting the server that's down, it's just not gonna fly. So, I went back to Windows XP as the primary OS and had it dual-booting Linux, until the Mac came along.

Anyway, I got chatting to the guy running Linux on his laptop at the course this week, and how he finds the current version of Ubuntu in these regards. He said it was all plain sailing now, and the problems I had fought all been ironed out in the more recent releases. So, this week I downloaded Ubuntu 8.10, and installed it alongside XP as dual-boot, like before, and...... it just works :-)

Everything is there; connecting to my WPA wireless network, all achieved quickly and easily through the GUI. Flash, Java, mp3 support, etc? - easy. Terminal Server, VNC connections? - no worries. Citrix ICA connections via a CAG/Secure Gateway? - not so straightforward, but only 10 minutes to get running. VMware Workstation install? - piece of cake. Hardware all automatically detected, including bluetooth; everything looks good.

Now, I'm sure that there are some items I'll have missed (mainly because I don't need them - I think the laptop has a WinModem for example, but I've never even plugged it in), and there may be a few hiccups yet to be discovered, but I am really, really struggling to think of a single, good reason to keep XP on it. Everything I need Windows for, I can do in VMware - I know this, because I have run this way on a Mac for almost 3 years now. All the benefits of not running Windows will also apply - reduced chance of attack from malware/viruses; increased reliability, Open Source goodness, Windows instances are sandboxed and snapshot-protected, etc. etc.

So, unless anyone has any strong justification to the contrary, the old Thinkpad and Windows will be parting company this week - Ubuntu will be the only O/S running directly on the hardware, and Windows will be confined to VM sandboxes, where (in my case, at least) it belongs.

I wrote this up, as it is an epiphany for me. I have been bleating on to techie mates for several years about how Windows is not the future (at least, not only Windows), and today, for me, the time has finally come when that is true. Not only because I can finally ditch Windows-on-hardware completely, but because I also think that Linux is also now a viable option for non-techies - the configuration and use of an Ubuntu system does not require any use of a CLI any more, and the interface is usable and attractive (once you get rid of that brown "human" theme!).

My last installation of Windows directly on hardware is being decommissioned, my entire computing world now runs on Mac OS X, Linux or VMware ESXi, and I am very pleased by the development. Don't get me wrong, Windows has it's strengths and it's place, but unless you're a gamer, I really don't think that place is necessarily anywhere outside of the office any more.

It's a record! - a full 6 months between posts. I'm just too busy / lazy / distracted these days.
Anyway, our man Wil Harris has been a busy fella over at channelflip.com - he's now got David Mitchell for 20 weeks, and has somehow snuck Bobby Llewelyn talking about machines in as a show too, without me even noticing.
My iTuneses are being configurised.......

This looks to be a genuine Tr2n trailer, leaked from Comic-Con (also at Gizmodo). There is no word that can convey the coolness that this promises.
No more needs to be said :)

Just had to post this quickly - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a new project by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Serenity and all that good stuff), and looks promising. It's interesting, as it's not a normal movie release and will be posted on the internet for free, for 20 days only. See the plan for more info, but basically;
ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.
ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.
ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.
All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)
Awesome :)

Well, that's a record. Four months between posts. A third of a year. Sorry. So I thought it would be nice to post an update on what's what with this blog, as I don't intend to let it go stale.

That said, I am genuinely too busy to update it very often these days, and my usage model has changed since back in the day when blogs were the new, exciting thing. This blog has been running since February 2002, so it's over six years old now, but back when it was wet behind the ears a blog was a fantastic way to publish links to interesting stuff on the net. I used to check in regularly on other blogs to find links to new and wonderful things and people used to use mine the same way. That was how it worked.

Of course, over time, the links to fun stuff on this blog got interspersed with techy work links and personal views, rants, monologues and diatribes. The work stuff got broken off as you couldn't search a blog way back when, so I put all that gear into a personal Mambo site which has a searchable MySQL database on the back end. I still use that, although it's just for my personal reference now. I just can't be arsed to move it back to an online site at the moment, although I'd be happy to share the knowledge.

So that leaves the fun and interesting links and the personal views and rants.

Trouble is, these days it's just so much easier to use Digg or del.icio.us or any one of a number of other tools for finding and bookmarking content. I've just recently really started delving into del.icio.us, and am really liking it as a way to bookmark interesting stuff. Perhaps I'll post more on how I use it another time, as it's really handy for someone like me that might use any one of three or four computers, depending on where I am and what I'm doing. I've also been a long-time user of Digg, which I use more for discovering content rather than bookmarking it, but whatever works, you know?

Then there's MySpace (don't hit that too often any more), FaceBook (still check in on that fairly regularly), Pownce (developing nicely recently - might be really useful soon) and Twitter (inane for the most part, but still occasionally somehow absorbing). There's also other stuff which is more peripheral that I use, like Flickr and YouTube.

The thing is, I have no need to post links on a blog any more - del.icio.us is way easier and more useful. I wouldn't post pictures here either, as Flickr is so accomplished, so really that only leaves the personal views and rants.

So, that means that this blog is going to slow down, at least for a while. If I find something that I feel really have (or want) to discuss a bit, it'll appear here, otherwise please check me out on all the other online tools using the "Me" links on the right - they're just quick posts and links and such, and not written like this blog, but they're updated way more often. Oh, and my tumble log at Tumblr does nothing much other than aggregate my activity from this blog, del.icio.us, digg and twitter, but that's probably a good way to check in on what I'm looking at or doing online.

I guess that's symptomatic of the (online) times in which we live - too much easy, quick and thoughtless linking and commenting, not enough creative writing and thinking. Tags and shorthand are taking over from proper, human language online. Bummer, huh?

I promise that when the personal and work lives calm down a bit, I'll start posting more here. Even if that's in six months.......

I remembered; I'd seen a copy of Q Magazine over the festive break and they had the top 50 albums of 2007 listed (they only have their top 10 on the site), and I was horrified to see that Mr Hudson and the Library's "A Tale of Two Cities" was not in there. For my money, the album of 2007, no question.
(Oh, and that link didn't used to be a MySpace page - maybe they're working on the main site).

I nearly cursed just now. It seems no matter how good my intentions, it's always about a month between posts these days. Dammit. So I just got home from a good night with a good mate. Some shit was shot and a few beers were had, so apologies if this gets a bit random. Anyways.......
First, I can't remember what is first. I had something poignant and interesting to write floating about in my head and now it's slipped away. If I remember it, I'll come back and fill in this gap.
Next, Bill Gates' video of his last day at Microsoft from CES this year. Genius, respect where it's due etc.
Now, Kina Grannis, the girl that did the digg song, I have no idea why it's so appealing - it should be a slightly embarrassing geek item, but somehow is not. Actually, I do know why it's appealing - she is amazingly cute and sounds great, and also seems to be both talented and prolific. I hope she makes it. In fact, I just caught Try whilst writing this. F?*k; that's really, really good. I hope it's not some marketing trick (the production/engineering sounds dubiously well-done to me), but she is breathtaking in any case, so look after her, please.

Sheez, life is busy. Another month-long interlude on the blog. I keep seeing stuff that is interesting, and thinking "Oh, I'll blog that", but then good old life gets in the way and it all goes out the window.
Anyway, check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Interesting. Funny. Controversial. Probably about a month behind the rest of the blogosphere, but worth a looksee.
Next, the Amazon Kindle is apparently a genuinely good stab at an eBook device (at least, according to Steve Gibson), and I'm kind of interested to see how this pans out as I am a geek what reads on occasion.
Finally, and to complete today's random trio of links, I have found frixo to be a hugely useful tool when needing to know how the traffic is on the motorways near where I live. The simple map view is really, really handy when you're 5 minutes late out the door and need the info quickly.
Oh, and the quick iPhone update is that it's missing search and cut/copy/paste, which drives me nuts on occasion, but is still the most awesome device to have in your pocket. I just came home cross-country on the train, and was e-mailing, texting, calling, surfing and watching video all the way. It genuinely wasn't until using it like this that I really got it; although I loved it before, I am now well and truly hooked.

Well, it's finally here in the UK, and I have an iPhone.
I waited in line at the Apple store (pics, video), like a good (sad?) geek and had my mitts on one pretty much as soon as was possible.
So, first things first, it is absolutely awesome. I love it almost irrationally, and I wanted to get that out of the way before proceeding :)

I don't think anyone has summed up the experience and the hype quite as well as Stephen Fry did in the Guardian this weekend, in his piece entitled "Not sensible, but oh, the joy of it".
Also interesting was the fact that there were, by my reckoning, somewhere upwards of 150 people queuing at the Bullring Apple Store at 6:02pm, and yet the O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores were deathly quiet. Funny, isn't it?
Actually, there was one man who stoically queued on his own outside the Bullring O2 shop all day, with nobody but three O2 dolly birds to keep him company. Hang on, he may have been onto something there......... ;)

Anyway, my experiences so far have been almost entirely positive. Everyone has different requirements from a phone, and I know some people that are unhappy about things that definitely don't bother me (MMS messaging, for example - if I get an MMS, I have to use Safari to go to the O2 website and collect it that way). However, there are a few things that bother me, especially coming from a Treo:
1 - No search. I loved being able to search my Treo. If I forget someone's name but remember their company, or maybe don't recall someone's surname, search is really useful. Apple are also kings of search with spotlight, so I dunno what's up with this at all.
2 - There's only one calendar on the iPhone. I have two calendars on my desktop iCal, each in a different colour. It's nice. Why can't I do this on the iPhone? - everything is merged into one.
3 - No to do list. I like a to do list. I have one in iCal/Mail on my desktop; why is it not on my iPhone?
4 - No notes sync. Come on Apple! - what were you thinking? I have notes in Mail on my desktop. I have notes on my iPhone. Neither is synced to the other platform?!!
5 - No week view in the calendar. The list, day and month views are cool, but I do like a week view.
6 - Missing apps. I had a few that I really liked on the Treo (ssh client and encrypted text storage being the main ones) that are not possible on the iPhone. (Yet).
7 - Mail app on the iPhone doesn't support "Send As". I use this in GMail a lot, and it would be nice to be able to use it on the iPhone.
8 - No Flash support. Kinda annoying with some websites using it so extensively.

That's it so far though - not bad, really. There are loads and loads of positives, but I am currently really enjoying the easy, native synchronisation with my Mac. Palm conduits and all that bollocks were always a huge pain and caused endless problems if there was a twitch (which there was from time to time). The iPhone just works, as you'd expect.

I'd basically sum up by saying that it's not as flexible or well-featured as some alternatives, but what it does, it does supremely well. I can't see myself wanting any other phone for quite a while.......

Oh, and Apple have released 3 new TV adverts, all poking fun at Vista - "Podium", "Boxer" and "PR Lady". Enjoy :)