Blog of Hamlesh

Video: State of EU debt – hilarious

Hamlesh — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:16:35 +0000

This is hilarious – well worth a watch!

So where would you rather be a tech startup?

Hamlesh — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:49:52 +0000

I am waiting on some UK specific figures, but for now.

That is all!

Turndown exhausts on my Yamaha Dragstar

Hamlesh — Sat, 15 May 2010 12:40:03 +0000

Today is a good day, i’ve just been to pick up my motorbike from the workshop. She has been fitted with turndown exhausts, and boy oh boy are they loud. The bike is no longer called named The Monster, but is now “Thor’s Hammer“.

A little bit of fabrication work had to be done to get this to fit. Some brackets had to be made up, the RHS foot peg and rear brake lever had to be repositioned slightly, and the control regulator had to be moved.

The end effect is perfect though Still a few more little bits to do, biggest of which are the forward controls, but we are nearly there!

Isle of Skye – Panoramic

Hamlesh — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:47:23 +0000

A friend of mine has a very nice little cottage on the Isle of Skye that his family rents out to holiday makers. I try to go there at least once a year to recharge and get away from London.

So what? Why the Isle of Skye? Whats so special?

Well this is the view from the bottom of the driveway…

Click on it for the full version, be warned, its 19263 x 2426. I’ve made the full res version available on flickr, but please do let me know if you use it anywhere. I might get a 6ft wide print made up to hang in my room.

I really do love the Isle of Skye The panoramic above was shot on the 2009 trip up there, didn’t shoot much else. The 2008 set are on flickr though.

As always, please feel free to post a comment, or come and talk to me on twitter.

Yamaha XVS650 Dragstar workshop manual

Hamlesh — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:43:07 +0000

A couple of useful files for those of you that, like myself, own/ride the Yamaha Dragstar.

Yamaha XVS 650 dragstar owners manual download – PDF (9.46 Mb)
Yamaha XVS 1100 dragstar workshop manual download – PDF (6.95 Mb)

The workshop manual applies pretty closely for both the 650 and the 1100 – other than some obvious internal engine bits.

Hopefully by this weekend I’ll have the turndown exhausts fitted to mine – expect many pics

PS: If you find this download useful, please post a comment, or come talk to me on twitter.

Evening experiments with the light

Hamlesh — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:20:33 +0000

This evening, as I was heading out the front door, vernier caliper in hand, to take bike measurements for replacement parts, when I noticed the light condition – ran back inside, and emerged with my shooter.

Here are the results;

My favourites, which I have enhanced and processed using Aperture;

Motorbike crash

Hamlesh — Sun, 02 May 2010 23:32:34 +0000

As some of you know I recently had a little bit of a spill while pottering around the countryside on my motorbike. It was a silly crash, that could have been avoided, but thats what lifes all about – experience.

Now, I wasn’t riding fast, honestly, and I think that was part of the problem. Approaching a right hand bend, I slowed down too much and the bike drifted out towards the left – a crude way to explain it would be under steer… which you cant really do on a bike. In any case I ended up on the verge along the road with the bike bucking and rocking around. I almost had things under control, and the bike back on the road, when looming upon me, I spotted a large, thick, telegraph pole.

The choice was clear, ditch the bike off into the bushes, and jump off onto the road… where I landed on my face and right shoulder… quite hard. Thankfully, being a sensible type of chap, I had my flip face helmet closed, and visor down. Right now I’d have had no face had I been a MORON wearing an open faced helmet. Yes, people that wear open faced helmets are morons… its a fact… don’t argue with me… you’ll just be wrong. The impact of my face hitting the ground was so loud that the people in the house a few hundred yards away, came running out to help me. The impact with the ground was also nice enough to break my arm – so off to hospital I went.

My humerus was broken in two places, but luckily not displaced, and has, three weeks later, fully healed. My arm is still quite sore, but movement is returning slowly, the doctors have said it will take at least another 6 weeks for the soft tissue damage to heal.

Looking on the bright side, it could have been worse, if I’d hit that telegraph pole, that would have been it, game over, etc.

This hasn’t phased me, I will still be riding, when your clock runneth out, the reaper commeth – so theres no point worrying about it! I had the bike out for a little bit for the first time since the crash today, mainly to scope out the damage properly, and take some pictures.

Bent right handle bar support mount - its not in-line - see?

Dent in the fuel tank

Minor damage, I don’t think I’ll repair the fuel tank, mainly as I don’t think its possible without simply replacing the tank. Plus it will help to serve as a reminder, and add character to my bike One of the mirror mounts is also bent, and the bike needs a general clean up, to liberate it from bits of grass and mud still clinging to it.

All in all, compared to how things could have gone, both the bike and I came away from it all very much in one piece

Major BT service outage affecting London (AGAIN!)

Hamlesh — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:43:57 +0000

Almost a year ago, I posted commentary up on a major BT outage affecting London, caused by works at the Olympics site. Well theres now another outage ongoing, and I thought, as the last post had a lot of commenters, indicating to me that there wasn’t a lot of readily available information out there – I’d do the same this time around.

12:56 (BST) 31st March 2010

Information released to BT partner network.

BT are currently experiencing a loss of interconnect in London and surrounding areas, this is due to a fire in the Paddington exchange area.

We currently have limited information regarding this issue.

Further updates will follow as BT release more information.

16:40 (BST) 31st March 2010

In a further statement, BT said:

Following major flooding at a BT exchange in the Paddington area, tens of thousands of customers in parts of North and West London may be experiencing a loss of broadband and/or telephone service.

Customers in other parts of the country may also be affected. We are currently working on restoring services to customers, however as this is a complex incident we cannot accurately predict when all services will be restored. We will issue further updates as the situation changes.

Any customers needing to make calls to the emergency services who have a problem using their phones are advised to do so by using their mobile phone, or alternatively by using a friend or neighbour’s working phone.

I must say, I do love the over use of the phrase “may be experiencing loss” – look man, if the exchange is screwed, its not that customers might be experiencing a loss, they WILL be. This is going to highlight in a very painful way, just how badly put together and aged our network infrastructure in this country is. Its laughable that only a few weeks or so ago our government (in their infinate wisdom) decided to tout about how well the UK would stand up to a cyber attack. Well, perhaps we could, but a simple fire/flood (how can one not be sure?!) takes out most of the comms infrastructure for London. Just as a badly placed digger took out most of the South East of London’s communications infrastructure about a year ago!

Oh and what sensible and useful advise from BT there… if your landline isn’t working, use your mobile, or maybe check to see if your neighbours phone is working. Well I suspect that the London cell networks are currently very congested, and its highly improbable that your phone line would be down and your neighbours wouldn’t – unless of course they have a cable circuit, which in any case is also going to be suffering from a massive congestion spike, if its not fallen over. Most of the infrastructure in the UK depends on the BT backbone, which will also be suffering as a result.

From what I’ve gathered by speaking to other ISPs, there may be issues relating to this affecting up to 450 exchanges nationwide, but the sharp end of the stick is being felt in London. I really do hope that a lot of kit hasn’t been damaged in the exchange, getting it all back up and running 100% will take much more time than BT would like to admit otherwise.

I’ll keep updating this post as I hear more. Why not post a comment if you have something to contribute or found this useful. Oh and of course, you can talk to me on twitter

Clone VM under ESXi using SSH

Hamlesh — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:44:54 +0000

So, you’ve deployed VMware ESXi and successfully deployed your first VM. Now you are looking for the “clone” function that used to feature in the VMware Server of old. I have some bad news, they’ve taken it away from the free VSphere management application – its now a feature you have to pay for.

“Thats ok, i’ll just SSH in and cp the files like I used to using VMware Server 2″… well, bad news again, its not that simple anymore. You have to do a little bit of hackery, simple hackery mind

First step is to enable SSH on ESXi.

Go to the ESXi console and press Alt+F1 – you will get a blank screen
Type: unsupported and press (you won’t see anything as you type, but “Password:” will pop up)
Enter the root password, press
At the prompt type “vi /etc/inetd.conf”
Look for the line that starts with “#ssh” (you can search with pressing “/”, or just press down to scroll)
Remove the “#” from infront of the ssh line entries (put the cursor on the # and press “x” to delete)
Save “/etc/inetd.conf” by typing “:wq!”
Restart the management service “/sbin/services.sh restart”

Some people report that you have to manually kill and restart the “inetd” process using kill -HUP , but I didn’t need to do this.

You now have SSH access into the ESXi host.

Cloning a VM using SSH on ESXi

SSH into the server (duh!)
Locate the VM datastore (for me this was /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/)
Make a directory for your new virtual machine
Clone using “vmkfstools -i” (eg: vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/SOURCE/source.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/TARGET/TARGET.vmdk)
Cloning process runs (time to complete depends on size of SOURCE)
In VSphere create a new custom VM as you would normally, and at the disk stage, select “use an existing disk” and browse to the TARGET vm that you’ve just cloned

Simples!

Oh, obviously the clone process won’t run if the SOURCE vm is powered on and running, you have to fully power it down.

As always, comments and feedback much appreciated – oh and talk to me on twitter

Simple image definition enhancement

Hamlesh — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:16:58 +0000

Here is a nice, quick, and simple way to enhance the definition on pictures. Intricate detailing work can be highlighted when processing using a quick adjustment using Aperture.

This works best if you are shooting RAW.

Under the “Adjustments” tab, find the “Enhance” section, and slide “Definition” as required.

It makes a subtle but noticeable difference, as you can see in the two images below (look for the depth in the detailing on the building);

Standard Definition

Enhanced Definition

Debill Protest

Hamlesh — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:29:17 +0000

Yesterday, the Open Rights Group organised a protest outside the houses of Parliament against the Digital Economy Bill (aka DEBILL). I went along and took a few pictures.

So whats the big deal about the debill, and why are seemingly so many “techies” and “nerds” getting their knickers in a twist about it?

Consumers and companies (including Google, Facebook and ISPs – your broadband provider!) alike are up in arms about the Bill, which proposes that an Internet connection could be cut off if there is suspicion that it is being used for the downloading of copyrighted content.

This is very disturbing:

Although proof is required before disconnection, the evidence does not have to relate to you: you can be punished for the actions of a friend or even a neighbour who has used your Internet connection.
Rights holders could have the power to demand that sites they believe to contravene copyright law be blocked by ISPs. Right now, we don’t know what the govrnment will propose, as they have yet to draft their new proposal
As it is not the perpetrator that is punished, as you might expect, but the owner of the connection, and others using it, cafés and bars may have to stop providing wifi, no more BTOpenZone, FON, etc!

Regardless of what you do or don’t do, you could be punished for the actions of others because of laws put in place by the Digital Economy Bill: if you have unsecured wifi in your home, you could be punished; if you use the Internet at your local coffee shop or library, you could lose access to that connection.

Justice would not be completely out of reach: you could appeal, but you would have to pay for the privilege, and you wouldn’t be eligible for any legal aid. Reasons for appeal are limited, and unlike in a trial, the onus would not be on rights holders to prove your guilt: you would be responsible for proving your innocence.

This is another example of badly thought-out government policy, pushed through by lobbyists, and constructed by people who just don’t know what they are doing, or what they are talking about.

There are better solutions to the internet download problem, including the record industry evolving its business models to keep up with changes in technology (think Apple iTunes). Funnily enough, the music industry is thriving with downloads, its the record labels that are suffering – aww the poor “big machine”, its in pain as power shifts to “the little people”.

Those of you that know me, know that I am very much not a tree hugging hippy that believes the government is out to get us; I believe in free markets, I believe in capitalism, and I believe in equality for all. It is possible for all of those to coexist, anyone that doesn’t think so, is, well, just wrong (and stupid).

If you want to know more about this stuff, I strongly recommend you watch the Panorama documentary recently released, titled “Are the net police coming for you“.

Oversteer and Understeer

Hamlesh — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:07:00 +0000

I am often asked what the difference between overstreer and understeer are. Well, i’ve been working my way through all of Top Gear from season 1 recently, and I found this little snippet of a gem in season 2 episode 5.

So heres a very simple explanation from the one and only Richard Hammond.

Yamaha Dragstar 650cc joins the family

Hamlesh — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:34:58 +0000

If you follow me on twitter or we are friends on facebook, you would have no doubt noticed my childlike excitement of the last two days. Here is a quick recap

I’ve been riding a motorbike for one and a bit years now, doing it, what I think is the “sensible” way – obtaining my CBT, riding around on a 125cc for a while, then taking the “proper” bike test off of my own steam – so no lessons (I felt it was a waste of money, considering I’ve been driving since I was 17). Each to their own, but I personally think this is a nice gradual and sensible (shocking for me!) way to do things – rather than doing the direct access, getting a big bike, then getting hurt from lack of experience.

So, a few days ago, I passed my A2 bike test, and yesterday I went up to Milton Keynes to pick up my “new bike” – I say “new bike”, its second hand, but new to me (I think buying vehicles brand new is a silly idea).

I’m not sure if its a he or she yet… the names “big daddy” and “the monster” have come to mind since I’ve had it out on the road. You can’t really call a “she” bike “big daddy”… or can you… any name suggestions? – post a comment.

I brought the 125cc out of the garage to take some pictures side by side – as you can see there is a noticeable size (and weight) difference between the two. The 650cc also has so much torque, as its driven by a shaft rather than a chain or belt. Its hard to describe, but if I let the clutch out too fast at the lights I lift the front end up… on a cruiser… this just seems wrong. Another little snippet, the 650cc Dragstar is also the longest cruiser under 1000cc

Amusingly the road tax on this is £66 a year, £31 more than my Smart Fortwo!

If you are reading this on a syndicated site, you can view the pictures directly here, on flickr.

My new Moo cards

Hamlesh — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:14:41 +0000

My new moo.com cards arrived this morning, this makes me happy

The last time I ordered cards from moo.com, I didn’t really get the idea, this time around I spent the time, thought about it and put my own graphic together. This is the avatar I use on most social network sites, twitter, forums and so on. This gives some form of real world tie in with my “digital self”. Additionally the moo cards are “for fun”, and general networking, I wouldn’t use them for conducting the business of PeritusVentures or NXEQ for example, those have their own full sized business cards and are all corporate

Moo.com have really improved the design tool since my last order, which was back in Feb 2009. Its a lot slicker, and the font options for the text side of the card are much much nicer. Interestingly, because I didn’t really “get it” last time, I didn’t really hand out many of my old cards – it had a list of websites on rather than any useful contact information!

With hindsight, I wish I had put my PGP key on the card instead of my skype name – ah well, next time!

If you’ve not ordered from Moo.com before, use this discount code when you checkout 2RB2CK for 15% off of your first order

One final product shot, show the love!

As always, comment and tweet people, comment and tweet!

HP TC1100 tablet restore CD

Hamlesh — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:32:21 +0000

I have a HP TC1100 tablet PC, awesome little device for reading and browsing on – much more functional than the disappointing iPad. Anyway, I recently replaced the hard disk with a CF card + IDE to CF adapter – increasing the battery life, reducing boot time, making the unit quieter, and generally faster.

I had to reinstall XP tablet edition on it – after searching around for ages and ages to find restore CDs for it online (bought mine second hand, no restore cds), I opted to just buy some from HP technical support. Annoyingly they don’t make them available for download, and I therefore had to wait near on 2 weeks for delivery.

Download HP TC1100 tablet restore CDs

You can download the ISOs from me for the small fee of £5.00. Simply make payment using the PayPal button below and I will email you a link to the files within a few hours. These CDs do not require an activation key as it is supplied with your tablet, under your battery. You won’t be prompted for one when running through the install – but the restore image will only work on the TC1100 (checks bios). They are therefore fully licensed and will accept all current and future Microsoft Updates.

You will receive an email with links to two ISO images. The first is the system restore CD, the second is the drivers CD that would have come with the tablet originally. Both of the images work, and were created from the physical restore media I purchased from HP.

There are no licensing issues with distribution this way. I am doing this merely for convinience, you can of course purchase the physical media from HP directly, be ready to pay a lot more than £5.00 for delivery! If you own the HP TC1100, you are licensed/permitted to run XP Tablet.

Invite all your twitter connections to foursquare

Hamlesh — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:00:22 +0000

Right, so you’re on foursquare.com and you’ve found the neat little function to add your twitter connections as friends. Great, but you want a way to add all your connections without hitting “add” a few hundred times. A feature lacking at the time I wrote this blog post.

Solution

Install the imacros add-on for firefox (google it, its free).

Goto the foursquare.com import page, tell it your twitter username and the list of potential connections loads up. Now create a macro, a blank one is fine, edit it and replace everything in there with the code below (click “Continue Reading” below).

Run the macro and it will hit add for you 350 times

I’m @hamlesh on twitter if you have any questions or need help… or if you just want to chat, I get lonely you know!

PS: I KNOW its not my most elegant work, but it was late, and I just needed a brute way to do it – fixing other peoples UI shortcomings client side is annoying enough! And yes, I generated this with a bash while loop rather than manually incrementing the POS (before certain people I know ask!)

FRAME F=0 TAG POS=1 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=2 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=3 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=4 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=5 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=6 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=7 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=8 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=9 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=10 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=11 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=12 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=13 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=14 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=15 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=16 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=17 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=18 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=19 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=20 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=21 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=22 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=23 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=24 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=25 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=26 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=27 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=28 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=29 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=30 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=31 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=32 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=33 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=34 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=35 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=36 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=37 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=38 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=39 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=40 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=41 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=42 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=43 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=44 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=45 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=46 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=47 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=48 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=49 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=50 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=51 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=52 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=53 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=54 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=55 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=56 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=57 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=58 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=59 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=60 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=61 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=62 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=63 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=64 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=65 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=66 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=67 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=68 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=69 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=70 TYPE=IMG ATTR=SRC:http://foursquare.com/img/button_add.png TAG POS=71 TYPE=IMG 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Upgrading MacBook Pro hard disk

Hamlesh — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:07:14 +0000

Upgrading the hard disk in a uni-body aluminium MacBook Pro is really very easy.

First, find a suitable hard disk, I’ve opted for the Samsung HM500II (500GB) SATAII 2.5″. Personally I don’t think solid state hard disks are at a point where the balance between capacity and cost makes sense.

Now before you start, take a full time machine backup – this really is the simplest way to move your current system to the new hard disk. You won’t need to fiddle about reinstalling and configuring things. When taking your backup, check to make sure you haven’t excluded any folders from the backup. I normally have my “Downloads” folder excluded from the normal time machine backups.

1. Open up the bottom of the laptop – my desk always has an antistatic work mat on it, but take the regular precautions!

2. Unscrew the little holder pictured below and lift it out.

3. Lift out the hard disk (which I’ve already done) and carefully disconnect the connectors.

4. Remove the screws from the side of the hard disk, you’ll need to put these on your new disk. You will need a torx (Star) 5mm screwdriver for this. If you don’t have a 5mm torx, you could use a pair of pliers to carefully unscrew them and hand tighten them on the new drive. Invest in a set of torx screwdrivers, they are worth it, and handy.

5. Put everything back together, take care when screwing the case back together, its really easy to slip with the screwdriver and scratch the aluminium – which will make you cry, trust me

6. Boot your system from your install DVD. Using the “Disk Utility” create a new partition, then use the “Restore from backup” option on the “Utilities” menu. Connect your time machine backup drive and follow the onscreen instructions. it took roughly 1.5 hours to restore my 120Gb system.

I did run into a small problem after the restore, which is apparently quite common. “Quick look” stopped working, this is where you select a file and press the space bar to get an instant preview of the contents. I found a fix, and its documented here.

As always, please feel free to post a comment, or talk to me on twitter.

FIX: Quick look on OSX not working (black box)

Hamlesh — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:33:33 +0000

I’ve recently replaced the hard drive in my MacBook Pro with a higher capacity one (write up to follow). After restoring from time machine I found that quick look no longer works. If you try to quick look a file (select file, press space bar) you just get a black box. If however you select two files, hit the space bar, then click on the index sheet button (little button with 4 windows in a 2×2 stack), quick look seems to work – but only in the index sheet.

This is a common problem, but took some forum trauling to find a solution, so i’ll save you the work.

Simply reinstall the Mac OS X v10.6.2. Update. I was running 10.6.2 already, and it simply reinstalled over the top.

If this doesn’t fix the problem, boot your MacBook from the install DVD, select Utilities > Disk Utility, and “Repair Disk Permissions” – you’ll have to boot from the install media if you are repairing the same drive that your system boots from.

Good luck – post a comment and let me know if this works for you. You could always talk to me on twitter too

Voicemail… a better way

Hamlesh — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:41:40 +0000

This post is a little on the ranty side, but there is a solution at the bottom

I really really really hate voicemail, I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how much I hate voicemail. To me, voicemail is one of those technological advancements that should have remained in the last century, let alone the last decade. Its an old solution to a common problem that still exists today.

This little extract from the Dilbert cartoons should explain part of how the whole “voicemail experience” makes me feel;

This really does happen to me, people call me up and either;

1. Leave long messages – which are better off conveyed in email.

2. Leave short messages telling me that they’ve sent me an email or to check my email and call them back.

3. Normal people leave short messages with their details and ask me to call them back.

Ok, so now you’re thinking leaving a short message can’t be a bad thing, and thats surely the point of voicemail… well its not. Perhaps it used to be, but thats no longer the case. There are much better ways to convey the information that I have missed your call and need to give you a call back – yep, a text message. One would also be able to read the sms message and process the information in a much shorter time frame than dialing into voicemail and listening to the message. Inefficient and stupid, simple as.

So i’ve tried a number of different things over the years;

1. Turn off voicemail completely – only to get people whine that “oh, I tried to leave you a message but there was no voicemail”… thanks for informing me of what I already knew… yes, I turned my voicemail off, yes it was on purpose, and yes, if it was important enough, you’d have found SOME OTHER WAY to get the message to me.

2. Explicit asking people to leave a “SHORT MESSAGE” – this worked initially, but people soon reverted back to leaving long messages.

I had pretty much given up trying to find a solution. Then one day, salvation came, unexpectedly. I was calling a customer and they were busy, but instead of getting asked to leave a voicemail message (which I don’t tend to do either!) a little recording started to play “this person cannot take your call, please try again later or send a text message”, on repeat.

Finally, there was a solution out there! The bad news is that its a setting/option provided by their network operator. A facility which my provider, Orange, does not.

No matter, I found another way. This works on Orange, it may be different for your service provider. Using AT&T’s text to speech demo I created this wav file recording “The person you are calling cannot take your call, please try again later or send a text message”.

Then within the Orange voicemail, there is the option for an “extended absence” greeting, now the major difference between this and a normal greeting is that you can opt to not accept voicemail messages while your extended absence greeting is active. So using a pair of headphones right infront of the mic pickup on my mobile and some careful timing; now whenever someone calls and I am otherwise occupied they hear the synthised voice of Crystal, asking them to try again later or send a text.

Win Finally!

Download the wav file: here

Or create your own: here

PS: Yes I know Google Voice would be the other solution to this problem, but its not available outside of the US, and I doubt they will bring the service to the UK, not for a while anyway.

Some more moon shots

Hamlesh — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:21:13 +0000

The moon seems to be my muse as of late.

I’m waiting to invest in a 2000mm telescope that has a Nikon camera mount, then i’ll be able to take some more detailed shots and of other astronomical objects.

Above was taken just before the “blue moon” eclipse on the 31st Dec. Annoyingly and upsettingly a cloud covered the moon after this and blocked my view of the moon for the rest of the night

This was taken on the night of the 1st Jan I believe, the moon was really low in the sky making it look bloodshot.

I’ll return to my usual petrol head techie posts soon – honest

Ghetto DIY flash diffuser

Hamlesh — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:12:38 +0000

I’ve been unhappy with the standard flash on my camera for a while now, and from time to time find myself in dire need of a flash gun which can be pointed at the ceiling (think indoor shots, no natural light, etc). Instances of need however are not frequent enough for me to invest in a Nikon SB-600 (yet), but they are frequent enough to be a cause of great irritation and sleepless nights. Ok, perhaps not sleepless nights, but you know what I mean.

So, while looking around the shed for a hammer (all 3 of my hammers seem to have grown legs – don’t ask!), I came across an old flash gun that I picked up many many years ago from eBay for a few quid.

(Yes I know its a rubbish photo, taken using my phone)

After excitedly fitting it to my camera, I decided that its “intelligence” was very limited, and I mean VERY limited! There was also no way to point it upwards – so out came the cardboard, scissors and sticky tape.

Ta da I’ve set it to full power manual mode, the camera can only tell it when to trigger, but at least its brighter than the standard flash, and its firing light upwards.

Here is an early test shot, taken indoors, my desk lamp was the only source of light in the room.

(Isn’t this just a lovely little espresso cup – recent present from the better half)

Ok the shot is blurry, but the result I’m looking for is the gauge and quality of the light, which is spot on (for a cheap little flash gun and some cardboard).

(Odd box of cables and bits I need to put in the shed)

Again the only source of light in the room other than the flash gun is my desk lamp. I’m somewhat pleased with the result

Naturally, give it a few months and I’ll be blogging about how this setup was rubbish and I invested in an SB-600 Then again, this “natural” hardware progression is the better way to go in my opinion. Fudge/Bodge it until you know how to use the tools, then get good tools.

Some say snow is good, I say humbug!

Hamlesh — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:57:51 +0000

I’ve heard from a few of my friends/readers in Canada that they’ve all been finding the UK’s total inability to cope with the recent “snow storms” absolutely hilarious, of course, looking beyond the mockery at our expense, thanks to the UK mainstream media, calling the recent snow a “storm”.

A lot of people have been enjoying the snow, and its the first time in many years that we may actually stand a chance of celebrating a “White Christmas” in the UK… although currently, its looking like the weather in yee old Blighty will return to its normal programming, ie, rain, and we’ll all enjoy a nice gray and slushy Christmas. It remains to be seen.

Personally I’ve not enjoyed the snow, beyond my initial school boy excitement, which lasted a whole 5 minutes, a long time considering. The snow “storm” has caused havoc on the roads, journeys that normally take 15 minutes have taken near on 4 hours recently. Apparently the warnings that the UK MET office had been issuing for weeks never reached the highways agency, and yet again they were “caught unaware”… as my girlfriend keeps asking, upon observing the competition ice rink style road conditions, “so why exactly do we bother paying taxes?”.

Humbug I say!

Ah well, on the bright side the snow did give me something to shoot.

If you are reading this post on a syndicated site, you’ll need to view the slideshow directly on flickr, here.

I’m still around and a few fixes

Hamlesh — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:59:27 +0000

Well I know its been a long time, and I don’t seem very active – I have been working on a few projects, and hopefully they’ll come to fruition soon and I can talk about them… well at least blog about them.

You can always keep up or engage with me on twitter

On another note, I’ve had a few blog comments complaining about some broken download links, so those have been fixed.

CISCO Lab Software – PacketTracer: now available for download again. Please post a comment, it helps with my page rank (shows activity and relevance), and takes about 2 seconds to do.

Photo Booth (for osx): my solution/fix to the common problem of photo booth not initializing the inbuilt camera is available once more for download.

Enjoys

Photos of the moon

Hamlesh — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:59:54 +0000

Recently, I’ve been playing with my camera more, making an effort to get back into the swing of “shooting” things and events. I was out the other night, “shooting the moon”, and out once again tonight.

It took me a little while to realize that the best way to keep the camera stable was to lay down on the driveway! My tripod won’t support the weight of the 80-200mm lens.

Was made by combining;

What do you think?

Why are you on ecademy.com?

Hamlesh — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:48:10 +0000

Ecademy.com is a business networking site, its been around for a long time, but is lesser known than the likes of linkedin.

I often get asked by people, “why are you a blackstar, you don’t seem to be very active, isn’t it a waste?”. Phrased slightly differently, but usually the same gist. Blackstar’s are the highest level of membership on ecademy, and you pay what to some seems like quite a high membership fee for said membership.

Well for me, heres why.

02:46am – post market place advert offering deskspace in mayfair.

03:06am – search google for “mayfair deskspace“. SECOND result on the FIRST page.

From no where, to the first page of google in 20mins. Now what would that be worth to your business – enough said, now stop asking me stupid questions!

The way sound affects us

Hamlesh — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:49:32 +0000

For a while I’ve been thinking about the importance and relevance of sounds in our daily lives, the sounds we notice, and the bulk of sounds we simply pay no active attention to. Like many geeks and techies out there I can sleep with computers whirring and beeping in the background, amongst my techie friends I am known for my very weird ability of sleeping in a loud datacentre environment. For most people this isn’t normal, they need quiet to have a good restful night sleep – perhaps all of these sounds are affecting me in my sleep somehow, that was the thinking, so I started to research.

I came across this TED lecture by Julian Treasure on the 4 ways sound affects us, its worth a watch as a starting point.

My office (like many others) has lots of servers and computers running in it, and lots of background noise. According to Julian this kills productivity by 60+%… very worrying! So I started to look for ambient sounds that can play in the background while I work, this was harder than I thought it would be. Finding high quality both in terms of bit rate (audiophile that I am) and in terms of content was quite difficult.

This is a very nice MP3 and long enough to have in a constant loop without becoming mechanical and repetitive.

Download Ocean Sound (8.16Mb – 5:56 length).

I also came across this podcast on iTunes (iTunes link), which is a regularly updated podcast of bird songs. One of the issues I found with podcasts and iTunes, is that although there are many ambient sounds and relaxing sounds podcasts listed in the directory, many are no longer updated, and many have broken links within them.

MakeUseOf.com (a blog I enjoy reading regularly) have also detailed some nice free iPhone/iPod touch soundscape applications. Although they’ve taken a slightly different slant on it, by looking at applications that can help you fall asleep, but still worth a read, and a good resource for direct links to the apps. My personal favorite, after having tried all the listed free apps, for its sheer simplicity is Naturespace (iTunes link).

Its been two weeks now, and while working, rather than having the news or music on in the background, I am mainly using the ocean mp3 listed above. Its working well for me, and as long as it does, I’ll continue to do it

Samsung’s new OLED screen hit with a hammer

Hamlesh — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:12:31 +0000

Check out this video of a flexible OLED prototype, by Samsung, its a 2.8″ display (166ppi), and it’s just 20 micrometer thick.

Want to know just how durable these new OLED screens are, watch this;

If you can’t see what a big deal this is, and the impact it will have in revolutionising the devices of the future, well all I can suggest is that you stick to your sundial.

Brilliant Vodafone Advert Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture

Hamlesh — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:57:06 +0000

Vodafone NZ’s Symphonia features 1000 cellphones syncing 53 different ringtones, alerts from 2000 sent messages to reconstruct Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. This is just brilliant

And here is how it was made, part 1, part 2.

Enjoy

Only for the truely geeky – Japan Linux Symposium

Hamlesh — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:22:36 +0000

Only the truly geeky out there will find this picture funny, “normals” should read below

Its Linus Torvalds (the guy that initiated the development of the Linux kernel, giving birth to the linux operating systems).

Microsoft tried to torpedo the success of the Japan Linux Symposium by launching their Windows 7 product that same day. They had even setup a big promotion booth across the street from the conference center.

During a break, the guys at the symposium decided to have some fun (well what constitutes for fun amongst geeks) and dragged Linus over there. The sales guy obviously had no idea who he was dealing with

Via: geeksaresexy.com and chris

Get a Mac videos respond to Windows 7 launch

Hamlesh — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:46 +0000

Well, Windows 7 has launched, so no doubt they’ll be a few Windows 7 related posts from me over the next few days. Firstly, and very surprisingly I haven’t kept up with all the hype, I haven’t tried out the new OS from the boys and girls at MS, and honestly, I’m not all that bothered.

I find that I’ve evolved past a state of caring about the “mac vs pc”, and “windows vs linux” arguements, or paying much attention to what OS I’m running or how its configured. These days, all I want is for things to work properly, very quickly, without stalling, and with absolutely zero drama. So yes, I’ve ditched all my PCs (and millions of screens) with XP, linux, and BSD and exclusively work on my Macbook running OSX – why? It ticks all those boxes for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have XP on here too, running virtualiased under Parallels – whatever gets the job done

Anyway, here is some fun from the boys and girls on Apple’s “get a mac” campaign – brilliant as always

Enjoys

Motivational Video – life is risk

Hamlesh — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:00:24 +0000

This is an absolutely brilliant video, a quick must watch.

Pixar Intro Parody Video – the boys at collegehumor do it again!

Hamlesh — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:00:23 +0000

The boys at collegehumor.com do it again, watched it a few times, hilarious!

Amazing Juggling

Hamlesh — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:08:43 +0000

Michael Moschen, truely a master juggler.

Enjoy!

Geek Rockstar: Ajay Bhatt (Intel Video)

Hamlesh — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:00:27 +0000

An old advert from Intel, with the “Rock Star” Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB.

INQ wallpaper

Hamlesh — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:23:23 +0000

I’ve had an INQ for a while now, mainly for the free skype to skype calls. It works relatively well, but i’ve been meaning to customise it.

The INQ screen resolution is 240×320.

Here are two images I’m using on mine, one is set as the desktop, and the other is the “screensaver”, although quite why a phone needs a screensaver I’m not entirely sure. But after a timeout the image changes to the “screensaver” and the phone keys lock. Ho hum.

As always, if you find this useful, be nice, say thank by posting a comment, or/and, follow me on twitter

CISCO VOIP phone firmware images (7940 etc)

Hamlesh — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:28:56 +0000

I was clearing out my file server as part of a new file server setup I’m working on at home to cut power used and noise (i’ll blog more about this later), and I found these two CISCO firmware images. Both of which come in bloody handy when you are trying to make a CISCO 7940 work with/on SIP.

POS3-08-2-00.zip
POS3-08-6-00.zip

As usual, if you find this useful, please post a comment and/or follow me on twitter.

Play ball, don’t make me take these down too!

Motorbike parking in St.Albans

Hamlesh — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:00:17 +0000

Here is a quick mashup map of the motorcycle/motorbike parking bays in St.Albans, Hertfordshire.

View motorcycle parking in st.albans in a larger map

Source for data

Run this town ringtone mp3

Hamlesh — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:50:12 +0000

For a while now I’ve had a profile on my BlackBerry that plays a different ringtone when the woman calls. Its been the generic “ring ring” type of affair for a while, but I’ve been meaning to change it. Finally got 5 minutes to put a short 20 second loop together.

Shared for everyone: Jay Z feat Rihanna – Run this town.mp3

BEFORE you get all excited, it is ONLY a 20 second loop for use as a ringtone, not the entire track.

Naturally, if you find it useful, post a comment and say thanks, or/and follow me on twitter

TopLinked.com – Aug 2009

Hamlesh — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:00:25 +0000

LinkedIn users looking to expand the number of quality connections they have make use of the toplinked.com service.

Blurb from the toplinked site;

With 43,000+ participants, TopLinked.com is by far the largest open networker group on LinkedIn.

Open networkers are people like you – people who know the incredible value of being open to new opportunities and new connections.

They are the most helpful and connected people on any social networking site.

By adding yourself to the TopLinked.com Invite Me List you can reach every open networker on LinkedIn (there is no need to waste your time with anything else).

TopLinked.com is THE secret of how to build larger, more diverse, and more valuable networks on LinkedIn!

Heres the August 2009’s invite me list: download.

Remember to say thank you by commenting and following me on twitter!

CISCO Lab Software – PacketTracer

Hamlesh — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:45:54 +0000

CISCO PacketTracer is a brilliant CISCO lab simulator for those wanting to learn how to configure and maintain CISCO kit, or run simulations.

Or as the CISCO site says;

Packet Tracer is a powerful network simulation program that allows students to experiment with network behavior and ask “what if” questions. As an integral part of the Networking Academy comprehensive learning experience, Packet Tracer provides simulation, visualization, authoring, assessment, and collaboration capabilities and facilitates the teaching and learning of complex technology concepts.

Screenshots;

You can download it from either the CISCO Network Academy, or from here.

If you found this useful, please post a comment, or follow me on twitter.

google is…

Hamlesh — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:30:15 +0000

Following on from “twitter is” earlier;

I particularly like the last one

twitter is…

Hamlesh — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:00:11 +0000

Made me laugh

Blog database restored

Hamlesh — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:57:10 +0000

Finally got around to restoring my blog database backup, some content will be missing, mainly images and downloads. If you need anything thats missing, drop me an email and i’ll see what I can do. One of the most visited and useful things was my iPhoto fix, i’ll try and get the file back up soon.

Epic trailer for Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4

Hamlesh — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:00:51 +0000

Check out this epic trailer, I’ve moved the video content to my specific video blog site.

Epic trailer for Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4

BT outage update

Hamlesh — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:35:07 +0000

The recovery work is taking place in 2 stages. We have installed ducting and surface level cables (3 x 276 fibre cables installed, 4 more are being installed) to divert cables away from the damaged area of the tunnel.
The second stage is to retrieve cables from the tunnel to connect to the newly installed surface cables
The first 96 x fibre cable has been successfully retrieved and jointed, restoring service to multiple transmission systems. Services to Poplar exchange have started to restore with full restoration expected imminently. This will mean that 999 service has been restored to all PSTN customers with contended access to normal voice service,
The second 96 x fibre cable retrieval from manhole 144 is progressing slowly due to asbestos and poor air quality. Engineers in breathing apparatus have entered the manhole and are extracting the cable for jointing over ground. This cable will be completed around 05.00. on 7 April.
Other restoration work using make-good capacity is continuing.
In total there are 1836 fibres are to be repaired. The first 96 fibres represents 5% of the total.

What does five nines uptime really mean?

Hamlesh — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:00:05 +0000

In the world of “online” and hosting, theres a lot kicked around about uptime, SLA, and “the nines”, and no, I’m not talking about a set of characters from a J R Tolkien saga, I’m talking 99.99% uptime, nines.

Having built hosting infrastructures for smes and bluechips alike, running Berkeley IT, and a number of “online related” or more to the point “infrastructure related” companies/projects, this is something I am constantly at a loss trying to educate others on. Thanks to the media (as usual, misinformation and the general media, who would have thought!), Jo Public tends to think that his 99.9% SLA uptime guaranteed by his US based reseller shared hosting provider is where its at.

“My online plate shop is critical to my business, it will never go down with XYZ company, they offer 99.9% SLA”… this is the type of drivle that Mr Jo Public can be overheard spouting, and at which point I tend to want to walk over and bash him over the head with a large banana, repeatedly, preferably one that has been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

Lets clear up a few things.

Nothing can truly be 100% uptime guaranteed, as something can always go wrong
A 100% uptime guarantee will cater for “force majoures” though, so dinosaurs coming back to live and rampaging through the datacenter, thats excluded from your guarantee
99.999% uptime is achievable, and usual involves multi level redundancy, including physical datacenter diversity – ie: your plate shop being mirrored in a different physical datacenter
Usually you would need multi level redundancy for this, all the way up the chain, power, network, distribution, data, component – not something thats cheap to deliver – although for infrastructure people it is easy
99.9% uptime SLA is usually what most providers would look to offer as standard
EXPECT TO PAY A PREMIUM FOR 99.999% - if you aren’t paying a premium, and your hoster claims the nines, then its about as likely to be “five nines” as I am to suddenly wake up and find that I have the powers of spider man
the SLA will usually outline your reimbursement if there is unscheduled downtime, if it doesn’t, move your business elsewhere, as the SLA and uptime claims just aren’t worth anything
that word in point 7 is important, “unscheduled“, most, if not all providers will exclude “scheduled maintenance” from their uptime guarantee, make sure that your SLA outlines how much notice will be given before this work, and how long work can realistically last for

Now to quantify a few things;

99.999% uptime SLA quantifies to 0.4 minutes of down time a month or 5 minutes of downtime per year
99.99% uptime, 4 minutes per month, 52 minutes per year
99.9% uptime, 43 minutes per month, 8 hours and 46 minutes per year
anything less, theres no point

Pingdom have actually put a really nice little PDF guide together for this, check it out.

Major BT outage in East London (olympics 2012)

Hamlesh — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:05:36 +0000

Sore more info on this for everyone, from BT, seems like the media are playing this down a fair bit – I wonder why…

{paste}

Update issued at 21:00 hours, April 5th 2009 A serious incident occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, 4th April, which has had a major impact on BTâ€™s network in the Ilford area of East London.

A large thrust borer being used by a third party construction contractor on work not related to BTâ€™s business penetrated one of our deep level tunnels in that area. The thrust borer has completely penetrated the tunnel and has caused material damage to both the copper and fibre cables in the tunnel.

BT engineers are working around the clock to restore service as soon as possible.

More than 70,000 PSTN customers were initially affected, though almost half of these have now been restored. Several thousand broadband lines, a large number of private circuits and Featurenet services have been impacted. Emergency and Police services were also affected but these services have been restored.

The tunnel is so badly damaged that it is not possible to work there pending structural support work and it is likely to be three days or more before that work can be completed and damage repair work undertaken.

In the meantime we are pursuing many alternative means of restoring service, including re-routing, establishing radio links and the diversion of circuits to surface level ducts. However, the scale of the damage means that only a proportion of the affected services can be restored this way. As a result, mobile STM-1 equipment is being moved to site to allow us to use dark fibre as a means of restoring service.

Emergency transmission equipment has been arriving on site and this is expected to continue through this evening. We expect this equipment will be set up and available to support service by midnight.

We should see the first cables installed by around 02.00 hours on April 6th. At that stage, we should be in a position to start connecting the transmission equipment and cabling. Further services restoration, managed by the BT war room, should begin soon after that.

Work will continue until all services are up and running, but it is unlikely that significant numbers of circuits will be working before 06:00hrs. There is still a lot of work to be done to fully recover the situation but work will continue throughout tomorrow.

MBORC (measures beyond our reasonable control) has been applied for.

More briefings will be provided as the incident progresses.

Q and A

Q. What has happened?

A. A third part contactor has caused serious damage to major telecommunications cables in one of BTâ€™s deep level tunnels, which has resulted in a loss of service to customers in parts of East London.

Q. Do BTâ€™s engineers currently have access to the tunnel to start fixing the damage?

A. Not at the moment. Our engineers cannot access the tunnel until the site has been declared safe for them to enter. Health and safety and structural engineers have assessed the damage and recommend structural support in the tower before work is undertaken. This structural work is expected to take a number of days

BT engineers are currently using alternative methods to restore service and have already successfully restored service to thousands of impacted customers.

Q. How many customers are affected?

A. This is still being assessed, but initial estimates are that tens of thousands customers are affected. Thousands have had their service restored and work is continuing around the clock to restore service to all customers. We will provide further detail as the situation develops.

Q. What services have been impacted?

A. A range of services are affected, including telephony, broadband, ISDN and private circuits. A number of mobile â€˜cell sitesâ€™ are also affected.

Q. When do you expect all repairs will be complete?

A. This is still being assessed. Our engineers are working around the clock to restore services to customers as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the damage, which happened 32 meters below street level, it is not possible at this stage to provide an exact timeframe as to when services will to be restored but customers should be assured that everything that can be done is being done. We will provide further details as the situation develops.

Q. What should customers do if they have no telephone services and they are infirm or vulnerable?

A. Affected customers needing to make calls to the emergency services are advised to do so by using their mobile phone, or alternatively by using a friend or neighbourâ€™s working phone.

Q. Can you provide a guarantee to any affected major business in the area that their services will be restored by Monday morning?

A. We recognise the critical importance of communications services to major businesses and are therefore working around the clock to restore service as quickly as possible. If necessary, we will prioritise the restoration of services to businesses and public sector organizations first.

Q. Has anyone been hurt?

A. There are currently no reports of any injuries at the site. The safety of the site is currently being assessed by a team of safety consultants and structural engineers. The London Fire Brigade is also on standby if required.

Q. Does the any structural damage to the tunnel pose any significant risk to people living in the surrounding area?

A. This is currently being assessed

Q. How many other communications providers are affected?

A. A number of other communications providers are affected. They are being kept informed of progress by BT

Major BT service outage East London near 2012 site

Hamlesh — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:00:02 +0000

During Saturday afternoon, 4th April 2009, on the 2012 Olympics site, a large number of high capacity BT core network circuits/cables were damaged by a Third Party. These cables were in a tunnel 32m below ground surface.

Since Saturday afternoon, BT engineers have been on site working to restore service to customers affected by this incident.

Internet circuits have not been affected

EDIT: I stand corrected, looks like a lot of internet circuits are affected, was a lot of misinformation being fed out when I first heard about all this.

Building a marketing plan in just 7 days

Hamlesh — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:00:36 +0000

To|Market has written this guide to help you develop your own business marketing strategy in just seven days. It contains a full seven days of ideas and work plans for you to achieve success which you can dip into gradually, or work through over the space of a week.

“Marketing gurus” often get bogged down with complicated marketing solutions often geared to big business. Itâ€™s not that theyâ€™re not relevant to small businesses too. Itâ€™s just that a lot can be trimmed from the rhetoric, taking the best of what the big companies do, translating the remaining nuggets into everyday accessible use by small businesses.

Small businesses that are switched onto marketing hold many advantages;

they can respond more quickly than their slower competitors
the personality of their brands can be more rapidly conveyed to their customers
personal touches can be direct and immediate

Download the guide in PDF format.

Howto upgrade the RAM in your MacBook

Hamlesh — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:30:03 +0000

Recently I’ve been using my MacBook more and more, pretty much for everything, and the 2Gb of RAM it came with just wasnt enough. Now this is one of the easiest upgrades in the world universe to do, and pretty much anyone could do this – although if you screw up your macbook, its your fault and not mine :p

How much RAM can the macbook take?

Using the information on wikipedia, this is straight forward enough to work out. Load up system profiler, in the “hardware overview” section (should be the default section that loads when system profiler starts up), you’ll see the “Bus Speed”.

667 Mhz BUS means that you can install 4GB of RAM, but only 3GB will be usable.
800 Mhz BUS means that you can install 4Gb of RAM, and use all of it

What RAM do I need?

Refer to this Apple knowledge base article, I have the standard MacBook (ie: not the unibody aluminium thing), so for mine its;

DDR SO-DIMM (30mm)
PC2-5300 DDR2 667 MHz 200 PIN

I grabbed two of these from ebuyer.com, Â£39.20 inc VAT and next day delivery, which isn’t bad at all for 4Gb of RAM

How do I install it?

Really, this was the simplest thing in the world to do. I think this could actually be less complicated than tieing your shoelaces, so if you can do up your own shoes, and if you can use the interwebs, this shouldn’t cause you any sort of issue – if it does, sign up for “special school”.

SHUTDOWN – don’t hibernate
Take the battery off
Remove the three screws across the top edge, remove panel
Pull out the levers and eject the RAM
Insert new RAM (be sure to put them in the right way around)
Replace panel, replace screws, replace battery
Boot up and be happy

^-Removing the three screws across the top edge

^-Ejecting the installed RAM

^-Insert new RAM – NOTE ORIENTATION (notch is on the left hand side)

All done

Oh and obviously, don’t be super cheap, replace the RAM in pairs, for less than Â£40, its well worth doing it right.

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PS: Sorry for the poor quality pics, only have by BlackBerry camera on me.