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Month: December 2003

Snippet: Internet Broken?

December 23, 2003
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Strange things are afoot on the internet at the moment it seems. Sites I visit on a regular basis Slashdot.org (a techy news site which has such a high readership it can “bring down” other websites: the so called “Slashdot effect”) is returning a high number of “500 Internal Server Errors”, and SpamCop (a site for reporting spam) is also returning “Proxy/500 Internal Errors”. Luckily my servers (my two personal ones and the ones I manage for work) are running OK (although earlier a MySQL server failed: but I sorted it within a few minutes), but one of my three incoming POP3 mailservers (the one provided by my ISP Demon) is non-responsive.

Blarg! 🙁 Oh well, gives me a chance to get on with some work…

Poll: Etiquette test

December 17, 2003
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I managed to get ten out of 13 on the Etiquette Test that Scott at the Gamer’s Nook blogged about (and he got it from Dave).

The ones I got wrong were the “thank you card” one (I’ve never been any good at sending out Thank You cards/letters in any form), the “name tags” one (I always wear mine, when I have worn one, on my left breast pocket), and the “female business introduction one” (but that could just me being polite).

Snippet: Broken Keyboard

December 16, 2003
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It appears my keyboard is suffering from problems at the moment – they seem to be power related as if I hold it closer to the receiver (yep, it’s a wireless keyboard) I’m able to type quite normally. However, if I place the keyboard on my desk it doesn’t. Well – it didn’t until just then. Hmm, I’m now typing this on my desk wondering what’s going on…

Aargh! I’ve just noticed not one, not two but 10 fully charged batteries in a box in front of me so I needn’t have worried about finding a shop selling batteries at nearly 11pm at night. Ignore this post, I’m just rambling on a bit here (blame a small f-ck up at work and me not feeling 100%: haven’t eaten properly for 3 days since I’ve not felt that hungry, and I’ve been sleeping quite a bit as I’ve been feeling tired – yet bags under my eyes exist still). Blarg 🙁

Snippet: Where’s that backup…

December 14, 2003
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Kak! I’ve just need to revive some code that I created in a week for a developmental site over 4 years ago (3 computers, 1 house move and 2 server moves ago). Since the site was only on the internet for around two months, it’s not in any of my “recent backups” (I’ve managed to check as far back as August last year without problems), but I know I kept a copy somewhere. Problem is: is it on CD (I think it is) or Iomega Zip disc or on a computers hard drive? And which format will it be in? Back then, I was coding on an Acorn RISC PC which has its own Disc Filing System (ADFS) and the hard drive and Iomega discs won’t be readable on either my Windows XP machine or Linux machine.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem as I’d just pull my old Risc PC out of the attic, hook it up and somehow get the data off it (as I suspect it’s stored on the hard drive: either that or on one or more of the 12 Zip discs). However – the machine won’t boot (it’s 10 years old and by looks of things the CMOS battery on the motherboard has corroded). It’ll turn on, the power light will come on, the hard drive will spin, the keyboard LEDs will briefly flash and that’s it 🙁

Thing is, I can get a replacement RISC PC a lot quicker and cheaper than getting the current machine repaired (just buy a second hand one off Ebay). But I need the data by Monday morning(!).

*gulp*