1. 13″ Macbook
2. Chrome Metropolis
3. Microsoft mouse (cheap and unkillable)
4. 2x Apple Power Supplies
5. Glasses
6. 2m Network Cable
7. Medical Supplies in a Voodoo Tactical EMT pouch (Prescription and OTC painkillers and other meds, zipties, eye wash, splinter rippers )
8. Chrome pouch (holds Canon IXUS115HS point ‘n shoot)
9. Loyalty and ID cards for shooting/other sports
10. Zebra & Pilot pen, postits
11. USB->RS232 cable
12. USB-A -> mini-usb cable
13. Minidisplayport->HDMI cable
14. Fisherman’s friends (nom)
15. USB Flash drive(s) – at least two and some velcro cable tie
16. iPod classic 120gb
17. Flowfold Black Pearl billfold
18. HTC One X
19. Chrome utility pouch - for cables
20. APC RS232->2.5mm Serial cables
21. Apple usb cable
22. Samsung USB->MicroUSB cable
23. APC Rack key
24. Leatherman wave
25. LED Lenser V6
26. Wenger NewRanger 63
27. Riverbed orange screwdriver ‘o doom
28. Gerber “why do you carry that?!?!!” knife a friend brought back from the sandy place

I’m 6’9″ tall and carry a lot, but it looks like a little bag on me and I use it most every day. Am working on perfecting it by shrinking number/size/weight of tools, while keeping the quality and utility of them high. Also, I’m hard on my stuff

Crossposted to Reddit

It’s only been about 30 hours and there’s no flickering as yet. There seems to be a single stuck-on  red pixel in the “top” of the screen which comes and goes, hopefully it’s just some weirdness. The warranty conditions mention it has to be at least three pixels before they’ll do anything about it.

If only there was a truly technical group in your mobile phone provider that you could contact regarding these sorts of things – “when are you going to release the next update”, “can I please have access to your usage data api for more user-friendly apps” etc.

I’d ponder out loud the idea of business customers getting information and access, but from my knowledge of Optus and Telstra, that’s definitely not forthcoming regardless of how much money you throw at them. It’s the modern age, internet companies and other providers make the information available – why not telcos?

Thursday, May 10, 2012
Do you support same-sex marriage?

I don’t see why not – to me it’s just a mutual acknowledgement of their relationship, and also has a legal framework behind it for dealing with things like death of a partner and things like that. Also, it reduces the welfare burden for countries with it, because two lesbians with children in a house would be able to each claim single mothers’ allowances.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012
What place seemed much smaller after coming back to visit again?

Primary school would be the easy one – there was probably a ten year gap between when I left and when I came back. Going from about 5’10″ tall to nearly a foot taller made interacting with the environment very different. Swinging from the walkway crossbeams used to be fantastic fun, running along and flinging myself like Tarzan. These days, were I to try it I’d be grazing my knees!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012
When you need creative inspiration, where do you go?

Creative inspiration? I’m one of  the least “creative” types I can think of. The internet’s terribly inspiring for various things, or Bunnings if I’m looking for a creative solution to a physical problem. I like just wandering around and peering at the various bits and bolts and tubes and lights.

Monday, May 7, 2012
Share a story about someone you admire.

A story about someone I admire? Live a full day with RMB and you’ll get all the story you need. She’s such an amazing woman on so many levels.

Sunday, May 6, 2012
Do you think people can change?

Yes, but only if they want to. The nature of people tends to stay the same, but they can learn new ways of embracing it and or showing it. My vocabulary’s leaning more towards being able to express myself better, while my handling of rage-inducing events is tempered by experience and resignation.

Saturday, May 5, 2012
What’s your favorite (sic) way to cook eggs?

Scrambled for sure, light and fluffy and homogenous and you can turn them into bricks! I don’t like fried eggs, they tend to be either sloppy or just too hard, while poached seem to be a little soggy for my liking.

Friday, May 4, 2012
Have you ever wanted to build your own house? What would it look like?

A big Queenslander-style house, with large open spaces, big verandahs, that kind of thing on a giant property with lots of different biomes to play in. If it was in the city I’d go a big warehouse made of prefab concrete panels, with a suspended level for eat/sleep/groom, another level for living and playing with stuff, and the ground level would be cars/garage/big machines.

there are now 2 OTA updates carrying the version 1.29.xxx

• 1.29.401.7 – released last week to Europe and today in the UK for unlocked handsets and the new update release today
• 1.29.401.11 – release today in Europe
  This is one that apparently fixes the screen flicker problems.

It can take a number of days to bed in as the software monitors the voltage and adjusts itself to reduce the flicker over time. The new 1.29.401.11 update probably won’t release in the UK for a few days yet, I think it was about 6-7 days for the .7 release to become available (unless you’re rooted and like flashing ROM’s)

I guess the question is, how long is it going to take for Optus to check this over and do their thing? Hopefully before HTC decide to replace my handset, because I’m hating being back on my Samsung Galaxy S…

Basically there’s an issue with certain colour types/images where there will be a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) flickering of the brightness on that section of the screen. At times it looks like the drivers for the graphics hardware don’t seem to support an opacity overlay (it’ll happen on dimmed screens/gradients) but others it’s just on sprite graphics so I’m not sure.

I’ve only once seen the greenish tinted screen corruption that many people are having in videos on youtube and other places – mine it was the band across the top that holds the address bar/icons for the browser. Only happened for a second or two, and re-orienting the phone fixed it.

The phone’s been wiped and delivered to the Carindale store this afternoon, hopefully it won’t be the full two weeks they’re quoting me for a replacement devices…

• There’s too much stuff in my life
• There’s too many hobbies in my life
• I need to cut these down
• I am just not meant to ride a motorcycle in my current understanding of this
• I seem to be an alright shot, when it comes to Thursday Bowling Pin R/F shoots.

I bought myself a new phone today, a HTC One X. Nice phone, a little bigger than I’m used to, but this come with some bonuses to readability etc. Optus again, $60 contract, $9.95 for 1GB of extra data blah blah. Free 3G Home Zone thingy, which I’m not sure there’s much use for – if I have internet I have wifi, hence data. Maybe if I ever move to an area with crap mobile coverage it’ll be handy.

Um, yeah. Stuff. At this stage I’m going to look at selling my bike and using those funds to pay debts and push myself onto home-loan savings mode. Along with this, concentrate on a few things such as shooting, coding and riding my eBike. Maybe some lego?

This should keep me busy enough blah blah happy. Getting a trophy today for the 2011 rimfire shoot comp was fairly awesome, seeing as I haven’t been for months and it only took a detail or two for me to get back into the groove. I don’t think I’ve had a trophy before – yay!

I want to get back to attending these shoots once a month and at least training once a week. This should be easily done by going down on a (something) afternoon for an hour or so and just working on some kind of drills. It’s relatively cheap and the first sport of any kind I’ve been simultaneously good at and interested in.

There’s not much in the way of improved gear to add to the sport, I can go with crazy sights and modifications to the ruger I’ve got, or I can just concentrate on getting really good with it and making me perfect.

I want to get myself (and RMB) range-officer certified. This isn’t hard with the amount we’ll be on the range anyway, but it’s another notch in my belt as far as the sport’s concerned. Maybe if I can get into the groove of jogging or riding with a small pack down to the range and back on a weekend for a shoot that’ll get my fitness up as well?

Plans:

• sell or dump excess shit. Way too many little electronics projects and “one day” things.
• get better at shooting
• sell bike

Bam!

I don’t have my shaving brush yet, the only missing active piece from my kit – I need to get/make a stand for my brush & razor in good time. I did my usual dodgy trick, improvisation, and just rubbed the Palmolive shave stick roughly on my face in the shower and gave it a good smoosh around to get a light lather up.

A lot of reading has been done, so I knew to look/listen/feel for the right angle, and I seem to have figured out a few different ways to guide the razor to avoid hacking my face off. The “gently gently” approach was my aim, with little pressure being applied. I was using a BlueBird razor blade, which I got free with the razor. It’s nice, but I can tell it’s not as sharp as some others I’ve been peering at since receiving my goodies.

I only really got one part of my face smooth, that little soul-patch area below my bottom lip. It’s beautifully smooth though, which feels divine. The rest of my face is shaved on par with a normal cartridge shave when I’m being lazy, with certain parts being better more out of luck than anything else.

All in all, it was rather terrifying at first, but I can see this being a delightful part of my man-scaping routine, just like I’ve heard so much about.

So, what to do with a bunch of left over Gillette cartridges that no one should ever want?

As I was closing that article, a popup appeared from GMail advising me of a new email. I dutifully followed its demand to open the email, and was presented with this.

Internet, first you know about my small breasts and penile dysfunction, now you’re offering me candy? I’m just going to have to turn you off now.

I ordered the below:

• Proraso Aloe and Green Tea Shaving Soap
• Col. Conk Bay Rum Shave Soap
• Taylor of Old Bond Street Alum Block
• Gillette 7 O’Clock Super Platinum Blades
• Astra Superior Platinum Blades

When it all arrived, the box was kind of large, and had all these extra things in it! I couldn’t remember ordering them, but it seems they were free samples!

• American Crew Forming Cream
• Truefitt & Hill Lavender Shaving Cream
• Lord Super Chrome Blades
• Derby Extra Super Stainless Double Edge Blades
• Slick Water Shaving Oil

From ordering to delivery was under a couple of days, with an email for each stage of the process. Not only that but they automatically signed me up for the notification from Australia Post to show the tracking information!

It probably doesn’t cost them much in time, and the freebies were things that their suppliers probably gave them just to promote their products, but I was driven to post this by the whole experience – why can’t more stores have even half this service these days?

I think it’s part of a slow revolution that’s happening with internet retailers. Places like Harvey Norman are failing under the weight of their incompetence, while smaller retailers like Pure Man are reviews like this and providing excellent service! Keep it up

The first one’s a bit of a storage cabinet/shelf to sit over the toilet cistern, which normally wasted space full of dust.

Basically there’s two “legs” which hold toilet paper rolls on hinged roll-holders like you’d normally see in people’s toilets, but covered by a bit of a door so they’re out of the way. On top of the legs are a shelf or two for putting things away. While drawing this up I scribbled a few ideas down for how the toilet roll holders would work, and as I thought of the implementation steps the idea morphed into something significantly easier. (from a weird elevator-pulley idea to just a hinge)

The next idea’s another bathroom one, basically a panel to go into the window to install an exhaust fan in. On the back side there’s triangular prism-shaped vent style thing to keep rain off the motor of the fan and out of my bathroom. I’m sure I could buy something to do this job, but for $20 and some nails I think I could do a similar job.

Also, learning how to do it is fun!

HPM has taken down the manual for these handy battery-backed timer devices, so I’ve recreated the documentation I could find here. We use them at work for a variety of power control situations, including turning off banks of 46″ LCD TV’s overnight, so they can handle a fair amount of power.

Catalogue number is either D817/2 or 817/2

Time Display

To change from 12-hour display to 24-hour display, or vice versa, press the CLOCK button and hold it until the LCD display changes.

Setting the day and time

1. Press and hold the SET Button until the day shown on the LCD flashes.
2. Press either the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down] button to select the correct day of the week.NOTE: Holding down either the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down] button speeds up the selection process.
3. Press the SET Button again to confirm your selection.
4. The hour will now start flashing on the LCD. Repeat steps above to set the correct hour and repeat again to select the correct minutes.

Setting the timer

1. With the timer on Clock mode, press the [Arrow-Up] button once to change to Program mode. “1ON” will be shown on the lower left corner of the LCD. This indicates that Program Block 1 out of a possible 14 blocks is now selected and the switch ON time can be set.NOTE: If the timer has been previously programmed the current setting will appear on the LCD. You can re-set the Digital Timer at any stage by removing the battery.
2. Begin programming by pressing the SET button. The LCD will now show 12:00 or whatever was previously set, and the day(s) of the week will be flashing.
3. The timer has pre-set days already programmed into it to make it easier to program and to maximise the available program blocks.
4. Make your selection by pressing the [Arrow-Up] button and the LCD will display the following in sequence:
   • MO TU WE TH FR SA SU (all days of the week selected)
   • MO -> TU -> WE -> TH -> FR -> SA -> SU (select individual days)
   • MO WE FR (only Monday, Wednesday and Friday selected)
   • TU TH SA (only Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday selected)
   • SA SU (only Saturday and Sunday selected)
   • MO TU WE (only Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday selected)
   • TH FR SA (only Thursday, Friday and Saturday selected)
   • MO TU WE TH FR (everyday but Saturday and Sunday selected)
   • MO TU WE TH FR SA (everyday except for Sunday selected)
5. You can navigate through the selection sequence by using the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down] buttons. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.
6. The hour now starts to flash on the LCD. Select the desired hour by using the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down] button. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.
7. The minute now starts flashing on the LCD. Select the desired minute by using the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down]  button. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.
8. The LCD display should now be steady, with nothing flashing. This allows you to verify that the correct day/s, hour/s and minute/s has been entered.
9. Press the [Arrow-Up] button to program the switch OFF time. “1OFF” will be shown on the lower left corner of the LCD. This indicates that Program Block 1 out of a possible 14 is now selected and the switch OFF time can now be set.
10. Repeat the above steps to set the switch OFF time.
11. Press the [Arrow-Up] button to select the next program block OR press the CLOCK button to finish programming OR refrain from pressing any mote buttons and the timer will automatically revert back to Clock mode.

Setting the timer delay function

This feature allows you to set a time for a delayed switch ON or switch OFF.

1. With the Timer in Clock mode press the [Arrow-Down] button. The Bottom left hand corner on the LCD will show “d ON (or OFF)” indicating the timer is now in delay mode.
2. Press the SET button until the ON or OFF display flashes. Pressing the [Arrow-Up] or [Arrow-Down] buttons changes the status from ON to OFF and visa versa.
3. Pressing the SET button again confirms the selection and allows you to set the Hour, if so desired, or press the SET button again to se the Minute/s and again if you want to set the seconds.NOTE: Pressing the SET button will allow you to navigate through the sequence of:
   Status (ON/OFF) -> Hour(s) -> Minute(s) ->Second(s)You need only to set or change the components that you want.

   For example: If you wish a table lamp to remain ON for 10 minutes after you leave the house, set the Status to ON and if the time on the LCD is all zeros you can proceed straight to the Minute and set that to 10.

4. After setting the required Delay period press the CLOCK button to return the Timer to Clock mode.

Activating the delay function

The delay function can only be activated when the Timer is in Clock mode and only when the Timer is plugged into an outlet.

1. Ensure the Timer is in Clock mode.
2. Press the “MODE” button so that the horizontal bar on the bottom of the LCD moves and sits above the AUTO that is printed on the front of the Timer.
3. Press the DELAY button to start the function. Pressing the DELAY button again cancels the operation.NOTE: After pressing the DELAY button the word ON or OFF will appear flashing on the LCD.
4. Flashing ON: This means that the Timer will remain ON for the period that was programmed in the Delay mode.
5. Flashing OFF: This means that the Timer will remain OFF for the period that was programmed in Delay mode.

Activating the random function

The Random Function will turn an appliance ON or OFF on an irregular basis. Listed below are the criteria governing this operation:

• Minimum OFF time: 26 minutes
• Maximum OFF time: 42 minutes
• Minimum ON time: 10 minutes
• Maximum ON time: 26 minutes

1. To activate the random function ensure that the Timer is in Clock mode and that it’s plugged into an outlet.
2. Press the RND button once. The bottom left hand corner of the LCD will now show a flashing “r OFF”. This indicated the Timer is now in Random mode and it will remain in the OFF condition for a period anywhere between 26 to 42 minutes. It will then switch PN for a period anywhere between 10 to 26 minutes and then switch OFF again.

Pressing the RND button will cancel the Random Function.

Clock mode

During clock mode, the LCD displays:

• Day of the week (Monday at system reset)
• Clock (0:00 at system reset)
• Switching status (OFF at system reset)
• ‘R’ character if random switching is selected. (No ‘R’ displayed at system reset)

Override/Resume Preset Program

Press the “MODE” button to override or resume a preset program. The horizontal bar on the bottom of the LCD will move and sit about one of the three positions as listed below:

• ON : override the preset program and Timer remains ON all the time
• AUTO : resume preset program, Timer will turn ON and OFF automatically according to its present program
• OFF : override the preset program and Timer remains OFF all the time

NOTE: When Timer is in Random mode the Delay function cannot be activated.

Originally from here

After a few minutes of trying to convey the point, he decided to try and transfer me to a Bigpond 3G helpdesk person. Terrible idea, since they wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to deal with my Cisco 881G router, nor access to our service details.

While sitting on hold the operator offered the exciting opportunity that because I have both a phone and data service, I could speak with a sales person in the interests of bundling my services and saving lots of money! (English fail on his behalf, sigh)

I tried to get the point across that we had a fairly large account ($100k/month?) and that the account manager (whose job is to work solely with us) might have better deals, then gave up because he just didn’t get it.

My first choice was to go with Guzman y Gomez burritos – a 2010 Curious Kiwi Pinot Noir. RMB said either a Pinot Noir or a Rose, and I knew I didn’t want something as light and fruity as the Rose for my spicy dinner.

I’d heard good-ish things about New Zealand wines, and that Australian wines tend to be a bit punchy. $15 was a good price for a burrito wine, so it came hame with me.

I don’t know much about wine, but this tastes good to me! Fruity with a light tannin after taste, it’s definitely not sweet, just slightly dry. I like

That’s all from me for now, I’ve got the rest of this glass to drink!

For the put-your-feasting-gear-in-a-basket idea, I present IKEA’s sole solution to the problem, the BRANAS basket:

The small one’s about $7, the big one’s $10, and unless you’re using just bowls you’ll need the big one. They come in White, Black and Birch, and all the signs I see mention “Last chance to buy” so they might be disappearing soon. Bugger.

I really want to avoid the metal-looking lamps because they’re huge and heavy, suck for light throwing and hard to transport (though replacing the glass with perspex is an easy fix) but I think I’ll get stuck with them anyway. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to simulate big candlesticks

The only thing I really liked the look of at IKEA was this, but it looks all bulbous and weird so it’s unlikely to be anywhere near period. More actual research to be done before I can get anywhere with this project methinks.

\

IKEA’s going to make me buy one of these soon – the EKTORP 2-seater sofa. While looking at the colours just now though, it looks like they want to do violent things to me to get a nice colour cover. I think I’ll just go with the white and dye it in the washing machine, hoping for a nice deep purple or similar. I’ve been looking for a smallish comfortable 2-seater couch and this one fits the bill of cheap and comfy. The $200 one they sell doesn’t because the back’s way too low for me.

Spotlight had these cute little messy-wire slack-glass looking things.

The only thing of note I found in Freedom were these, and one of them is now in the bin because while picking it up and attempting to let it swing from the silly handle, the damn thing shot off the wire and exploded in mid air. Well, that’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it.

And finally, Anaconda had these. All they need is veins and they’d be perfect for porn. If you can’t work it out straight away, they’re water bottles. The bottom screws off to fill them, and you pull a nipple-thing out of the top and squeeze to get liquid out. They’re a good design – the liquid gets drawn from the bottom and the squeeze pressurises the system to make it flow. I just wish they didn’t look (or FEEL) so much like dildos.

“Error communicating with PsExec service on [hostname]: No process is on the other end of the pipe.”

As usual, google came to the rescue but it took a lot of forum scanning to find a result. The quick fix is to do this:

 pslist \\[hostname] 

You should find a process called PSEXESVC, if you pskill it, then you should be able to use PsExec again.

This happened to me after I’d used the SCCM Configuration Manager Console to initiate aInteractive Command Prompt which I subsequently closed without terminateing the process cleanly.

The perfect wallet for me is incredibly thin, ideally it would take up no more space than the items it holds, but still have a relatively simple billfold shape. I don’t like money clips (they’re ungainly) and can’t see the point of having more than one space for bills, let alone all that extra material and bulk for a trifold.

Their review of the Flowfold Billfold showed it looked to be a perfect fit for my needs – light, low profile and minimalistic. Flowfold makes all their products out of scrap material from racing yacht sails, making use of material that would usually go into the waste system. It’d be the first non-leather wallet I’d had in a very long time – but I couldn’t resist!

Cruising the site I found the Black Pearl Billfold. A nice simple, understated colour scheme with just the features I wanted. Ordering it was a snap – their cart is user friendly and only has a few steps.

Only eleven days later, I’d already forgotten about ordering it, but was surprised to find a simple yellow letter-sized envelope arrive on my desk at work. There’s something to be said for this minimalist attitude to postage –  HP and Cisco have been sending me CD’s and usb drives in boxes big enough to ship computers in lately.

It’s a simple design – a single area for bills, and four slots for cards. As an indication of overall size, Australian bills sit just above the lip of the fabric edging, making it a relatively small wallet.

Two card slots are 3/4 sized, allowing easy access, and the other two are full length holding cards away. The card slots are sized nicely, easily allowing two or three cards stacked per slot.

The only downsize I’ve found to it is that the corners are hot-melted to seal the fibres, reducing bulk but adding small sharp points to some of the parts. I’m sure these will rub off quickly with use, but it’s scratchy!

All in all it’s a nice wallet from first glance, and I’ll update with another post in a few months depending on how everything goes. Highly recommended so far!

RUNAS ERROR: Unable to run - cmd
1327: Logon failure: user account restriction. Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed, logon hour restrictions, or a policy restriction has been enforced.

After googling around a bit, most of the responses were about group policy or other restrictions causing issues, but it was actually much simpler!

The user’s password has expired. This commonly occurs for users that don’t login interactively very often, but use runas and the command prompt for most things.

I reset his password and once he logged into a machine via RDP to do a password reset, he was good to go.

Running top showed a process “update-apt-xapi” which was top of the charts for memory and cpu usage.

I googled around a bit, and found that the update-apt-xapian-index process is Ubuntu’s way of updating the synaptic indexing. Considering this is a cli-only vm where I use puppet to manage the packaging, it’s useless. Also, there’s many many many posts on the web about this package going mental on low-resource machines.

As a test I removed the package from the VM that kept having issues with the following commands:

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge apt-xapian-index 

This removed the package and dumped all config/storage of the files.

After leaving it for a few days it was fine, so I added the following config to puppet to make sure all my machines remove it:

package{ 'apt-xapian-index' : ensure => purged } 

Within an hour or so this had run through all my managed VM’s and the problem shouldn’t occur again.