Head in the Cloud: or how I’m trying to de-Google-ify my life
So I'm slowly trying to cut down my reliance on Google. Not because I think they are evil/out to steal my data etc. but because I don't like being so reliant on one company.
I've got my own 'server' now (an Atom based mini-ITX box with 2x 1TB mirrored hard-drives) so I figured I could replace a reasonable amount with self-hosted stuff. This is how far I've got so far
Gmail: not a total success. I'm using Roundcube and at the moment still using IMAP/SMTP from Google since moving that is more work than I have time for at the moment. I'm not sure I'll ever fully make that move since I prefer the Gmail interface, it's significantly quicker than Roundcube so I can see myself going back.
Google Reader: I'm now using TinyTiny RSS which is quite good, I can see me sticking with this as my feedreader of choice. I had a bit of a play with GobbleRSS but TT-RSS seems to have more features/polish.
Calendar: Not even attempted yet - the issue here will be Android integration and Outlook sync-ing
Docs: I don't really use docs, I tend to use Dropbox so I can get at all my files and use a traditional office tool. I'm starting to use Evernote more so an online office suite (with collaboration) would be great....I can't find any though. Neither Zimbra or Feng Office have enough features and anything else isn't self-hosted (and if it isn't self-hosted why wouldn't I just use Google Docs?).
Other things I'm going to do / am doing with my box:
- uPnP server (current)
- Folding at Home (current)
- File Storage via NFS and automount (current)
- File Storage via something I can access anywhere (future)
Coupled with DynDNS and Avahi/ZeroConf/Bonjour it's all quite useful if a little complicated to set up so many different services (and probably quite insecure, I've got a firewall set up via UFW so hopefully I'm ok).
Something I'm looking forward to being a little more stable is ownCloud, it looks quite useful but a bit early in its life for me to trust my data to.
The near-term improvement I'm planning is improving the usability of the file-sharing/syncing by using something like Sparkleshare.
In other news I can't wait for the RasberryPi to come out, if they keep to their $25 cost target I'm buying several.
Apple
Charlie Brooker sums up why I don't buy Apple products in the Grauniad (amusingly the page is named "charlie-brooker-pfroblem-with-macs")
Thoughts of a former Spitfire owner
So I eventually got round to selling the Spitfire like I said I would (about 6 months before I actually did). I wasn't really using it so it was the right thing to do but it still wasn't a pleasant experience. As a first classic it was excellent, very reliable, when it did go wrong it was something easy (old battery, broken fuel hose...). I noticed last year that I was contemplating jobs on my normal car that I wouldn't have done before (replacing the radiator for one) so at least I appear to have learnt something.
For now I'm not planning to buy another classic, but it's definitely something I'd like to do in the future, when I have a warm(ish) garage to work on it and stop it from going rusty. The key is that older cars are significantly easier to work on, to illustrate that fact here's the procedure for how to replace the washer pump on a Spitfire and a Peugeot 106
Spitfire
- Open Bonnett
- Unplug wires from washer pump
- Unscrew pump
- Replace
- Re-attach leads
- Close bonnett
Peugeot 106
- Open bonnet
- Unscrew washer reservoir filler tube
- Jack up car on Driver's side
- Remove from off-side wheel
- Remove wheel-arch liner
- Locate fixing screws and remove
- Remove entire fluid reservoir
- Unplug lead from pump
- Extract pump from bottom of tank and replace
- Reverse process to re-assemble everything
and that's missing the bit where you get to point 9 and find that what Halfords claim is the correct washer pump doesn't have the correct socket on it to fit the leads in the car.
And back up….sort of
I'll restore the posts at some point...probably, I do have the backup file
Power
I got one of those plug-in power meters from B&Q (they were doing a 10% off if you spend over £50, I had £45 worth of stuff in my basket and this thing cost £5)
I've been slowly going round the living room trying to work out where I should worry about power draw from stuff and where I shouldn't. Here's the results of a slightly unscientific experiment. Where I've quoted a range of figures it's to show the variation
| Appliance | Test Condition | Power Drawn |
| Humax 9200BTX PVR | Idle (Standby) | 12W |
| Humax 9200BTX PVR + Signal Booster | Idle (Standby) | 9.7W |
| Humax 9200BTX PVR + Signal Booster | Active (Watching TV, No recordings) | 26-29W |
| Humax 9200BTX PVR + Signal Booster | 1 Recording | 26-29W |
| Humax 9200BTX PVR + Signal Booster | 2 channels recording | 29W |
| TV (21" LCD) | Standby | 9.6W |
| TV | On | 57W |
| PS3 | Standby | 11 - 14W |
| PS3 | On | 116W |
| PS3 | Surfing Web (using BBC iPlayer) | 114.5 - 117.3W |
| PS3 | Playing Game | 120 - 137W |
| PS3 | Standby with "Remote Play" (i.e. Wake-up on LAN) | 19W |
| HP Deskjet 8450 Printer | Standby | 11.6W |
| HP Deskjet 8450 Printer | Idle | 14W |
| HP Deskjet 8450 Printer | Printing | 30W |
| D-Link Router | Booting | 14W-16W |
| On | 16W-19W |
Amongst this data there are a few surprises. Why does the TV draw 9.6W in standby, what's it doing? I'm pleasantly surprised that the PVR draws less than 10W given that it still has to decode TV signals in standby. Interestingly the combined power of the PVR and the aerial amplifier was less than the power of just the PVR. I'm assuming that the PVR's internal amplifier is less efficient that the separate one.
Finally, I haven't put this in the table but.... I was surprised how much the router was taking, I would have expected it to be less than 10W, in doing some of the testing I turned the router off, the power meter read 14W. Pulling the power cable out of the back of the router didn't decrease this value. So just the PSU for the router (a standard 12V power brick) draws 14W even when it's supplying no current. I find that quite shocking given that I've been involved with designs to run Linux on a PowerPC with DDR, memory etc. in less than 5W
Complaining – The right and wrong way to go about it.
The government have announced a plan to allow people to comment online about their public services. This seems like a sensible idea, an easy way to feedback constructive comments in order to improve public services. Well done the government. Except....
The flaw in this plan could very well be the general public as David Mitchell points out in his Observer column. The related point to this post is that I've found out I'm not the only one who's been forced to stop reading BBC News' "Have Your Say" boards, and Mr Mitchell links to the excellent ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com, a collection of some of the most ignorant, racist nonsense that sadly seems to fill the HYS boards, with introductions that are probably just as offensive.
So, the correct way to complain. Well, I'm sure the Open Rights Group have a few ideas. I've signed up to their news feed and get depressed on a regular basis. The most recent post was about the introduction of e-borders, the scheme to collect passenger information for everyone entering and leaving the UK. The information required will be Name, DoB, Passport number. The UK Boarder Agency also says "We will also collect other passenger information, for example details of reservations and payment.".
So to re-cap; Name, address, credit card number and the government's previous record of data protection......nope can't see any problem here
Easter Py
With Easter (rapidly?) approaching I thought now would be a good time to post some code.
So here's how you calculate the date of Easter (in python as it happens)
"To Calculate the Date of Easter"
year = input("Which year do you wish to calculate the date of Easter for: ")
a= year % 19
b = year//100
c = year % 100
d = b // 4
e = b % 4
f = (b+8)//25
g = (b-f+1)//3
h = (19*a + b -d -g + 15) % 30
i = c//4
k = c % 4
l = (32+2*e+2*i-h-k) % 7
m = (a + 11*h+22*l)//451
n = (h+l-7*m+114)//31
p = (h+l-7*m+114) % 31
print "Easter is on", (p+1),"/",n,"/",year
The method is from "Practical Astronomy With Your Cacluator" by Peter Duffett-Smith (which I recommend for anyone with an interest in Astronomy). It is based on the fact that Easter Sunday is first Sunday after the 14th day of the lunar month (the nominal full moon) that falls on or after 21 March (nominally the day of the vernal equinox).
I was going to post my code to simulate an Enigma Machine, but I seem to have lost it, if I do ever find it I'll put it up.
M&S
From an ad on Facebook
"Which words below would you most associate with M&S?
Qaulity
Convenience
Value
Underwear
Clothes"
Highlighting, obviously, my own
Why I'm not a very good geek
It's occured to be recently that whilst I like messing around with technology I'm not a particularly hardcore geek. Sure I run linux, but that's it, I run it and sometimes install it (which recently isn't exactly challenging). I don't really play around under the bonnet, I just want a desktop that works.
The infuriating side of this is that there are quite a few cool little projects that I've thought of doing but never got round to. This means that I'll never stumble upon the next internet fad and make a million purely by chance.
So, in case anyone wants to be more motivated than me here's a list of things I've considered doing over the past couple of years and never got round to
- Designing a house (may still do this but it will be waaaay in to the future when I have the money, I'm currently wondering whether TurboCad is worth having a mess around with, anyone know?)
- Building a remote controlled model Ekranoplan
- Designing / Building a cheap amphibious car (admittedly mainly spurred on by that Top Gear episode)
- Setting up an OpenStreetmap project (more on this later as I'll hopefully get round to this one)
- Designing my own lighting desk (a hardware implementation mainly with a software interface
Of course one of the obvious reasons why I haven't done any of these is because they are ridicously big projects of which I have no real need, unlike fitting a kitchen, fixing the car, and relaxing.
Some day I'll get round to some/all of these.....maybe