Projects

I have made extensive backend changes to the website – it is now fully PHP/MySql driven! I will get around to making some sort of editor soon, but for now PHPMyAdmin will do.

This site: http://www.tizag.com/ has been fantastic, it explains how to do each little step without the mess but still goes onto some advanced features.

The website i have been developing for work has benefitted a lot from that site! The new work site is up at www.irisradar.com  and currently does have its own CMS editor.

This should make management of my site far easier – being able to edit in phpmyadmin when on the move will be great adding pages is now a doddle – i add a new entry into the table on the database and if i set the ranking properly it will appear in the navigation bars as if by magic!

I also have flags whether or not i want it to be a main link on the nav bar, a admin type link on the top of the page or not to appear at all.

This weekend i attempted to give linux as a desktop ago, trying out the new Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and it’s still a no-go. X is still unfathomable when it comes to multi monitor multi display card interfaces it simply does not work. Until i can get my dual graphics card, quad monitor setup working properly under linux then i’m not interested in using it as a desktop. In that respect it still has a long way to go i think.

I was fully prepared to live with it permantly – using Rdesktop and SeamlessRDP for Outlook from my terminal services server because i can’t live without it but alas no, i will try again in another year or so but i suspect still no further progress will have been made.

Well i thought it was about time to let you know whats been happening in the world of Dave. So here goes:

Entertainment Setup:
Got me a 32″ TV! Yes i did and i only paid £325 for it too which is an absolute bargain considering the quality is on a par with the TVs i’ve seen priced on the high street at £800-900! And before you ask, yes i did get it legitibatly – from Microdirect in fact – an amazing store.

I picked up a second hand Yamaha 5.1 AV Reciever (DSP-AX620) which is pretty comprehensive in features – component/composite/svideo switching, lots of digital i/o for the audio not to mention up to 24bit/96kHz sampling.

All of my sources are now feeding it digitally which is nice – both the PC and the Mediacentre are just shoving down the S/PDIF exactly whats in the source material without pissing about it with, leaving it to the reciever to decode so i get lovely 5.1 (well, strictly speaking 5.0 as theres no sub but the front’s do more than a good enough job on the bass).

To get that working i had to replce the soundcard in the mediacentre – from a SB Live! Value which, while i forced S/PDIF passthrough on the special ‘for creative digital speakers only’ jack (turns out to be coax S/PDIF on a minijack) it was glitching quite a lot – probably due to the datarate – after all the card was only designed for 4.0! Got me a SB Live! 24-Bit and once again the minijack-phono adaptor does the trick to get a digital output from it!

I need to replace the rears as i want to be able to use my hifi again in the bedroom but other than that it’s pretty sweet. I have a DVI-HDMI cable coming soon too so hopefully i will be able to run the TV at the panel’s native resolution – 1366×768 instead of 1280×768 (where 720p HD is 1280×720) The funny thing is they are apparently ALL WXGA standard! Which is just a lie… I don’t want my TV scaling the image, even though when i play 720p content it’s going to get scaled anyway… No matter, it looks ace on decent bitrate SD material – much better than my old CRT TV and the MCE interface looks very crisp and sharp – even using the MSN Messenger client in it is more than usable.

At home:

I’ve got my keyfob finally! I can park my car in the secure carpark i’ve been paying for for the last 4 months at last! This means i’ll be able to service it too which will be nice, it was due some time ago! They also managed to send a plumber to do my bath taps, his conclusion was that the funny regulator/mixer value from the middle of the tabs was knackered and the whole unit needs replacing – no word back yet on when that’s going to be done, but one can only hope.

Also yesterday my glasses decided to snap in half! So i got a copy of my pescription from Specsavers and popped off to www.glassescrafter.co.uk and orderd a new pair – £44.50 all in! The lenses were a mere £8! I couldn’t believe how cheap it was, so i will have to wait and see how they turn out hopefully they will be ok, in the meantime i have my jam-jar glasses from D&A – same pescription (just about) as my broken ones but the lenses are twice as thick!

I’m going to attempt to repair my broken ones as i much prefer them – a bit of wire works but its a bit obvious, i will try glue, perhaps glue in some cut paperclips as reinforcement.

At work:

Work’s going well, buiried under C++ as usual, but i’ve also been working on the new server -

3x Xen VMs with: DNS, DHCP, OpenVPN, Apache, PHP, MySql, Trac, SVN, Postfix, Dovecot, Webmin, SpamAssassin, Amavisd-new, ClamAV, plus the biggie – LDAP! Arghh!

LDAP is amazing once it works – you can do so much with it, but setting it up is more than a bit tricky, i now have it working as auth for EVERYTHING which is just ace soo easy to administer.

Anyhoo, i’ll leave it there for now, hope that keeps everyone happy