Playing It Safe

Posted on Sunday, 31st July, 2005 by ianmacd

I don’t like to leave things to chance, and I really don’t like to leave my data to chance, so I decided that I need an extra layer of security with our upcoming move. With all of my computers soon to be in the hold of a ship, what happens to my data if the ship sinks? Exactly.

I’m planning to carry my laptop onto the plane, but it has no room for my data (loaded with OGG files, you see), so I needed an alternative. A quick trip to Fry’s later and I was the proud owner of a 400Gb USB Seagate drive.

That baby has now been formatted with a single ext3 file-system and is now happily soaking up all of my CVS source code, OGG files, photos, Web site pages, home directories and what have you. There’ll be bags of room to spare when it’s finished, too. The only bummer is that my fileserver appears to have only USB 1.1 ports. It’s a good thing I’m not in a hurry, but I’ll have to fix that at some point in the future.

When we leave for Amsterdam, that drive is going with me onto the plane. I don’t want a dirty great thing like that in my hand luggage, so I’ll probably entrust it to the hold of the plane. What are the chances that our suitcases get trashed and the boat carrying our belongings sinks or suffers flooding? Never say never, I suppose, but it seems unlikely. And if the plane goes down, well then, I won’t be needing my data after all.

Posted in System Administration | 1 Comment

Rockbox

Posted on Saturday, 30th July, 2005 by ianmacd

Whilst browsing around, looking for a new version of the firmware for my iRiver H140, I chanced upon Rockbox, which, in its own words, is Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio MP3 players.

What that description fails to mention is that Rockbox is also in the process of being ported to the iRiver H1_x_0 series of audio jukeboxes. The code is still in alpha state, but this comparison of features in the original firmware and the Rockbox firmware makes for impressive reading.

I was intrigued enough to give it a whirl. One very slick feature of Rockbox is that it turns your iRiver into a dual-boot system. If you depress the Record button whilst turning on the system, it boots the original iRiver firmware instead of the Rockbox firmware. That’s handy to get access to the FM tuner, for example, which still isn’t implemented in the Rockbox firmware.

Another nice feature is the very fast boot time, which is around 5 seconds, comparing very favourably with the original iRiver firmware boot time of about 20 seconds. There’s also the oft-requested feature of truly gapless playback, which is nice for ripped DJ mix CDs, amongst other things.

Other cool features are some trivial games and demons (Mandelbrot, Snake, Patience, etc.), the ability to customise the main display, by using a so-called WPS (While Playing Screen) template. This basically allows you to design how you want the main screen to look, including title and artist information, battery life, etc. It’s incredibly flexible, even allowing you to scroll items and alternate between multiple items per line.

Here’s a sample .wps file with the resulting display on the iRiver:

· %s%?it<%in. %it|%fn>
· %s%?ia<%ia|%d2>
· %s%?id<%id|%d1>
%pc/%pt                    %?pp<[%pp/%pe]|>
%pb
%?It<Coming up in %pr:|%acRetrieving data>
%s%?It<· %In. %It|%?Fn<· %Fn|%acfor next song...>
%s%?Ia<· %Ia|%?D2<· %D2|>
%s%?Id<· %Id|%?D1<· %D1|>>
%?It<%?pn<· [%pn]|>|%?pn<Playlist: %pn|>>
%pm
%acBattery: %bt (%bl)
%fc      %?fv<%ffHz|    %ffHz>      %?fv<%fbK VBR|    %fbK>

Rockbox running on iRiver iHP-140.

Rockbox running on iRiver iHP-140.

Rockbox offers a large choice of fonts to use on the display. In the above photo, you can see the Atadore font.

Rockbox also has support for interesting features, such as crossfade and replay gain, things completely lacking from the official firmware.

There are a few glitches in the Rockbox firmware and I’ve managed to crash my player a couple of times, but it offers enough niceties that I think I’m going to stick with it from this point forward. And, when I need the FM radio or something else not yet supported by Rockbox, it’s trivial to boot back to the official iRiver firmware.

If you have an H1_x_0 player (or one of the other supported players), have a look at Rockbox. It’ll breathe new life into an already great device and set it even further apart from the iPod.

Posted in Hacking, Music | 2 Comments

System Administrators Of The Word Unite!

Posted on Friday, 29th July, 2005 by ianmacd

Today is the 6th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day, so go on, appreciate me!

Posted in System Administration | 1 Comment

Gary McKinnon Interview

Posted on Tuesday, 26th July, 2005 by ianmacd

Briton Gary McKinnon was recently arrested and is awaiting extradition to the US. He is charged with penetrating US military networks and causing huge amounts of damage, although this BBC radio interview with him paints a more subtle picture.

Whilst he did, indeed, penetrate US military computers, he did so with the default administrator passwords of Windows systems that had been connected to the public Internet. Gary is facing 70 years in a US prison. If he goes down, they ought to send the system administrator of those boxes to share a cell with him, because allowing systems like that to hang on a public network is nothing short of criminal negligence.

Anyway, the interview is fascinating, because Gary claims to have been in search of and found proof of US involvement in the use of extraterrestrial technology. Gary talks candidly and lucidly about his experiences and paints a picture of himself as a tragically obsessed individual whose life became synonymous with the pursuit of more information. If he is to be believed, he caused no damage at all, beyond creating a clinical need to reinstall the systems through which he passed, as these had now been compromised and could no longer be trusted. Of course, any system whose administrator password has not been changed before it is connected to a public network is, by definition, untrustworthy and must be regarded as compromised.

Fascinating listening. Check it out.

Posted in System Administration | 2 Comments

Bloem Esther Lotte Stuifbergen

Posted on Monday, 25th July, 2005 by ianmacd

Bloem Esther Lotte has been born to my good friends Jules and Linda. If you can’t read Dutch, you might still appreciate the photos.

Jules and I used to work together at Sonera (which has since abandoned its Dutch operations). When Red Hat later headhunted me, I arranged for Jules to be hired, too. We left for England on what we thought was a one month trip, but Red Hat reneged on the deal and required us to stay in England. I walked away in disgust, but Jules stayed for a full year.

I then returned to Amsterdam, where I met Sarah, which resulted in my taking a job with Linuxcare (now Levanta) a few months later. I was supposed to spend the first month in San Francisco, then return to Amsterdam. Oddly enough, Linuxcare changed its mind and asked me to stay in the US. Déjà vu or what?

The moral of the story? If you get offered a job with an overseas company that claims to be willing to allow you to work from your own country, be very suspicious. It works out perfectly fine for many people, but has yielded bizarre results for me.

Still, it worked out OK in the end and, after 5.5 years, I’m finally getting to return home, with my own little daughter. I’m hoping Wiesje and Bloempje will become good friends, just like their parents.

Posted in Children | 1 Comment