• Checking in at Heathrow T3

    What a refreshing change.
    No queues no mess no fuss.
    Checking in at SAK took all of 5 minutes with a combination of self-checkin kiosk and baggage drop.
    Security didn’t take much longer either although the usual theatre of almost stripping naked and having to just about unpack my luggage due to electronics was unavoidable.

    Still,  compared to T5 it was easy peasy. Norway here we come!


  • luksClose fails, device busy

    Ok, so I recently put my backup system back into my server only to find an issue with my mount/unmount scripts.

    Namely: on unmount, luksClose fails with the device showing as busy. Which is funny because nothing should have been accessing it.

    There’s plenty of posts/bugs/etc online of people having the same issue, but either no solutions are posted, or the solutions didn’t apply in my case.  Well, I finally tracked it down: noflushd.

    noflushd is a daemon which spins down idle disks.  It probably wasn’t running on my old server which is why I didn’t have any problems before.

    Long story short, shutting down noflushd finally let me close my encrypted backup disk and shut it down. Yayy.


  • Tube troubles

    So there’s a signal failure at Mile End today.  More quick-setting concrete (1)?  One hopes not.
    However what I can’t understand is why they can’t just run up to Mile End (2) or a station or two before and turn the trains around there,  instead of causing grief on the entire line.

     

    (1) In case the link breaks, on the 23rd January contractors accidentally poured quick-setting concrete into a signalling room, suspending the Victoria Line for a day.

    (2) For non-Londoners, this is  a station on the eastern end of the Central Line.  There are 20 stations from Ealing Broadway in the west to Mile End.


  • Android VOIP clients

    For years I’ve used CSipSimple but lately it stopped working properly on my Note 2 after the last system update.

    Looking around I found Zoiper, another free client,  which seems to work.

    I’ll update this post as and when I try out other clients.

    For now:

    CSipSimple
    Integrates well with Android dialler. Many  calls, usually good quality. Worked very well up to Android 4.3, since then dodgy. Tried the nightly builds but not much better.  Free and no ads. Worked with DrayTel.

    Zoiper
    No dialler integration but can read address book.  2 calls so far,  one great quality the other shoddy. Free and no ads. Works with DrayTel.


  • Shoes Don’t Last

    So I don’t know what gives,  but lately (last few years or so) shoes just haven’t lasted. Usually the sole has worn  out or ended up with a hole in it after what I consider to be an extremely short period of time. Rarely do I get more than a year out of a pair of shoes, often just a season.
    This is with expensive (> £100) as well as cheap shoes. From special hiking boots to trainers to Birkenstock sandals (the latter lasted my grandad for over 5 years at a time, worn all day every day).
    Latest victim are my new boots bought in December: the lace just broke. *sigh*


  • EyeToy camera (for PS2) under Windows 7

    Somehow I ended up with several EyeToy cameras for the PS2, one of which I use for my Desktop PC as a webcam. Works a treat under Linux, so I decided to try and get it working under Windows 7 64-bit as well.

    There’s an archive containing drivers and a small test program here.  The driver has to be installed manually using the Device Manager (it’s not signed), but seems to work. YMMV.


  • Saitek X45 Flightstick

    Years and years ago I bought a Saitek X45 Flightstick, primarily for playing “X – Beyond the Frontier”. This was all good and fine under Windows 98. Didn’t work properly under Windows XP – the throttle never worked in the game.

    Anyway, the time has come for me to setup a Windows gaming PC again, and I pulled out the joystick and dusted it off. Plugged it in and wonder of wonders, after installed “jstest-gtk” it just worked. No setup, no configuration, no calibration. Mind, this is under Linux Mint 14….

    So reboot into my brand spanking new Windows 7 install, and while the Device Manager detects it, Windows itself doesn’t. So, head over to the Saitek site and download the relevant drivers (link).  Now I don’t know who’s to blame (Windows or Saitek), but basically the driver installer just sits there on a blank page waiting for the joystick to be plugged in (even though it is). Replugging doesn’t help either.

    Finally I manually extract the files (yes, 7zip can extract files from (most) EXE archives) and use the Device Manager to manually install the driver. This works, and Windows sees the joystick.

    Even the Mad Catz (Saitek) Profile Editor now sees the joystick and all appears to be well in the world..

    Unfortunately the latest version of X-BtF (2.2) still doesn’t fix the throttle control 🙁


  • Installing Windows 7

    So the time has come for a re-install of Windows 7.

    Base install took over an hour on reasonable hardware (X2 240, 4GB).  I fail to understand why.  Then there were the 101 updates plus 49 optional updates.  Time for SP2? I think so..

    20140119_WindowsUpdateUPDATE:  So it took nearly 5 hours to install all the updates.  After the obligatory 3 or 4 reboots, there were another 8 or so updates (and 2 reboots) before Windows was finally up-to-date.

    Apart from normal configuration, the following are the software packages which I consider to be essential to make Windows 7 usable and safe:

    Safety:

    • Antivirus Software. The 2013 winner was Avast Antivirus, and one I’ve used a lot in the past. As a bonus Avast now includes Anti-spyware protection.
    • Firewall.  Windows Firewall is ok for incoming threats, but for preventing outgoing connections you need a third-party firewall.  Comodo is good.

    Usability:

    • X-Mouse.  There’s registry tweaks or this simple program.
    • Alt-Drag to drag and resize windows.
    • Multiple Desktops.  Dexpot is the best I’ve found recently.
    • Console Replacement. ConEmu is quite good.
    • Notepad Replacement. I like Notepad++.

    Essential Software:

    • Archive Manager.  7zip is my choice.
    • SSH Client.  PuTTY is really the only option. A 64-bit version is here.
    • CCleaner is a quicker uninstaller and easily manages autostartup programs as well as various other system utilities.
    • PDF Reader.  I like Foxit as a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader, although Nitro is quite good too.
    • I like to run the following Gadgets to keep an eye on system performance:

    Applications: