Press "Enter" to skip to content

Richy's Random Ramblings

Techy: Setting up IPv6 on Linux Mint

February 6, 2013
Comments closed

On my Linux Mint 14 HP Laptop, I need connectivity to the “new” IP v6 internet – however, neither our office router (a 4 year old Draytek Vigor 2820n) or our ISP (BT Business Infinity) support IPv6: so how do I get access?

Well, first of all, I’ve signed up for an account via Sixxs.net (who provides what is called a “4to6 tunnel”) and waited for my account to be approved (it took about 3 days). I then requested a tunnel type of “Dynamic NAT-traversing IPv4 Endpoint using AYIYA” from the UK provider Goscomb and waited for that to be approved (which took about 8 minutes).

Once I had the tunnel, I needed to configure my laptop. A quick “sudo apt-get install aiccu” installed the AICCU package – which is the “SixXS Automatic IPv6 Connectivity Client Utility” (it’s also available for Windows, Mac, FreeBSD and many other platforms).

I then modified /etc/aiccu.conf by running “dpkg-reconfigure aiccu” which prompted me to select my Tunnel Broker (SixXS), my SixXS username (in the format WXYZ-SIXXS) and my SixXS password. It then automatically restarted aiccu for me.

Finally, I needed to configure my DNS to use IPv6 resolvers. I tend to use OpenDNS for DNS provision (if your nameservers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.2220.220 then you do as well), but I needed IPv6 ones. Luckily, OpenDNS provides the following IPv6 DNS resolvers 2620:0:ccc::2 and 2620:0:ccd::2. Add them to my /etc/resolv.conf file in the format:
# OpenDNS ipv6
nameserver 2620:0:ccc::2
nameserver 2620:0:ccd::2
# OpenDNS ipv4
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Go to the IPv6 test site at http://www.test-ipv6.com/ and my score is 10/10! Woot!

Google Adwords: Bullet Point recommendations

February 5, 2013
Comments closed

Here is a list of bullet points to keep in mind when running advertisements on Google Adwords:

* Each campaign should be very specific (“cpanel web hosting”)
* Use of the exact match [keyword] system will target specific keywords entered on their own
* Set up separate campaign for EACH country (try not to group countries)
* Multiple campaigns/adgroups with keyword specific ads and budget
* Upper casing the first letter of each Adword is recommend
* Using exclamation marks at end of adwords is good
* Use {KeyWord: Default text} to generate headlines
* Create variant adverts – sometimes with minor differences
* Try and keep the number of keywords per adgroup low: Google suggest 5 good keywords, maximum of 15 keywords per adgroup
* The Display URL can be “faked” (i.e. doesn’t really exist): for example http://example.com/webhosting
* Use “Keywords->See search terms” to see exactly which search terms were triggered in that adgroup
* Make sure negative keywords such as “free”, “jobs”, “careers” etc are set if not relevant
* On negative keywords, DON’T do things such as “free web hosting” as it will negatively match “web” AND “hosting”! If you need to block that specific, use [free web hosting]
* Use separate campaigns for display network with each adgroup targeting specific types of sties and each separate budgets
* If targeting generic words such as “web hosting use a separate campaign with separate budgets
* Recommend setting up Ad Extensions using Sitelinks. Possibly including telephone numbers and/or product images (although this would need us to add “products” to Google Merchant Centre with fixed pricing: so may not be relevant).

Geographical precision compared

February 4, 2013
Leave a Comment
Precision UK Ordnance Survey Eastings and Northings Grid Reference Degrees Decimal Degrees
Data from Wikipedia Stack Exchange
111km – 1 0 decimal places
11.1km – 0.1 1 decimal place
1.1km 2 digits each/4 digits total
1km square		 0.01 2 decimal places
111m 3 digits each/6 digits total
100m square		 0.001 3 decimal places
11.1m 4 digits each/8 digits total
10m square		 0.0001 4 decimal places
1.1m 5 digits each/10 digits total
1m square		 0.00001 5 decimaal places
11cm 6 digits each/12 digits total
10cm square		 0.000001 6 decimal places
1.11cm 7 digits each/14 digits total
1cm square		 0.0000001 7 decimal places
1.11mm 8 digits each/16 digits total
1mm square		 0.00000001 8 decimal places

PHP: Magento: Extract orders based on tax status and payment type

February 2, 2013
Comments closed

When you are doing your quarterly VAT returns and inputting details of your Magento shopping cart ordersinto your accounting software (such as the brilliant Crunch system), wouldn’t it be handy to be able to get a simple list of all orders between two dates, whether tax was paid on the order or not (note: this query will NOT work if you have orders with taxable and non-taxable items) and the method of payment (if you are running the SagePaySuite, it’ll also list whether payment was made via Amex):

SELECT
COUNT(*) AS ordercount,SUM(nettotal) AS nettotal,SUM(taxamount) AS taxamount,taxstatus,paymenttype
FROM
(
SELECT
sales_flat_order.increment_id AS orderid,
sales_flat_order.entity_id AS internalid,
sales_flat_order.base_total_paid-sales_flat_order.base_tax_amount AS nettotal,
IF (sales_flat_order.base_tax_amount>0,'tax','untaxed') AS taxstatus,
sales_flat_order.base_tax_amount AS taxamount,
IF (sales_flat_order_payment.method='sagepayform',IF (sagepaysuite_transaction.card_type='AMEX','Amex','SagePay'),sales_flat_order_payment.method) AS paymenttype
FROM
sales_flat_order
JOIN sales_flat_order_payment ON sales_flat_order_payment.parent_id=sales_flat_order.entity_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sagepaysuite_transaction ON sagepaysuite_transaction.order_id=sales_flat_order.entity_id
WHERE
sales_flat_order.state='complete'
AND sales_flat_order.created_at>='2012-11-01' AND sales_flat_order.created_at<='2013-01-31' ) AS subquery GROUP BY subquery.taxstatus,subquery.paymenttype

Movies: Recently watched films

January 20, 2013
Leave a Comment

This week, mainly due to insomnia, my wife and I have watched a number of movies, and here’s a thoughts on them in “worst to best” order. Some spoilers ahead.

5. Prometheus
Looking up its Wikipedia entry afterwards kinda sums up our thoughts of this movie. It started off being a sequel to Alien, then a reboot and then a prequel. It shows its uncertainty quite a bit and it had a lot of potential, but just wasted it with “cut and pasted” sections from Alien (oh – the robot has a different agenda from everyone else and – shock horror – ends up decapitated. Oh, somebody leans over something different and gets a acid-blood face hugger who people then take back to a ship whilst a woman tells them not to break quarantine etc etc). It could have just been so much more – and how did the Space Jockey get back to his ship in his pilot seat (as we see him in Alien with a “chest buster” hole) if he died in the Prometheus emergency pod? Too formulaic, too uncertain what it is (psychological horror horror, sci-fi, straight horror). Very disappointing.

4. Tron: Legacy
I managed to pick this up for just £3 at Sainsburys yesterday – and I’m glad that’s all we paid for it. The young Jeff Bridges/CLU didn’t quite “seem right” (we think it may be because the VFX tried to map the 1980s “Jeff Bridges face” [but not the one from the original Tron] onto the 2010’s Jeff Bridges face and things – due to aging – just don’t match right), the sirens scene seemed extraordinarily redundant (and those heels!) and the light-bikes and curves? A large part of the excitement of the original Tron Light Cycle “race” was the fact they could only make 90 degree turns and be quite limited as to how they could escape: whereas ramps and curves (and not long lasting light trails) means it was just a standard chase sequence. The suits lighting (and the whole “grid lighting/effect”) wasn’t, in my opinion, as good/effective as the original movie, the story line seems a bit forced (especially concerning ENCOM) and there just wasn’t really much Tron in Tron (“Tron” has been reprogrammed as is, in fact, playing a different character for most of the movie). Oh – and Michael Sheen’s Castor/Zuse character was very David Bowie-esque.

3. The Dark Knight Rises
Actually reasonably good – we had problems with the sound level: when Batman was speaking we had to increase the volume and when Bane was speaking, reduce the volume. Quite a few plot holes (how did Batman get to/from the prison when “not-at-all-Manhattan-island” was closed off), but wasn’t bad.

2. Marvel’s The Avengers
Quite enjoyed it, thought “Black Widow” was a bit of a wasted character: she didn’t seem to do much. Loved Iron Man. This was the first movie we saw in the sequence, so my mind is a little bit hazy of the details now.

1. The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey: Cinema release (2D)
This is the only one we’ve seen at the cinema (at Cineworld in Ashford: all the others were DVDs or iTunes) and it was a little bit loud for us (but this is probably due to the cinema not the film). I’ve never read the book so I can’t really compare them. I felt the Gollum/Sméagol poetry scene was stretched out and didn’t fit (if they had alternated with the Dwarves being in peril it would have given a better “going on at the same time” feeling instead of “dwarves are on pause”). The trolls and the Pale orc seemed a bit “deus ex machina” solved – and why didn’t they just ride the eagles all the way to the mountain. I was surprised the great goblin was actually Dame Edna Everage (well, Barry Humphries). Apart from all that, quite fun and enjoyable.