Matthew Dawkins - minipix.co.uk

Even if you’ve caught only a few minutes of news on TV today it will have been pretty much impossible to miss today’s big news.  America elected Barack Obama as their next President, beating John McCain by a significant margin.  In fact, so big is this news that it dominates the headlines here in the UK too.  It’s as if the American President is our America President too.

I have been interested to note a certain level of bias in our news.  Now, I know politically-minded critics will say that no media is totally unbiased, but some are more likely to express opinions than others.  For instance, I am not at all surprised when Channel 4 or even ITV shows a report that is clearly in favour of one candidate over the other, but I was more surprised when the mighty BBC fell into the same trap.  I’m not at all interested in politics, and yet the media reports were such that I know plenty about Obama and next to nothing about McCain.  It’s as if this country has been told that Obama was the right person to win, and we’ve all just accepted it without realising it.  Everyone’s really pleased that Obama won, implying that we wouldn’t have been quite so overjoyed with the alternative outcome.

But what has intrigued me most is the different approach the Americans have in their elections. (more…)

As many of you will know, I maintain and develop the Diocese of Chelmsford web site, which is a big (800+ pages) site with lots of content and serves a lot of people.  One of our monthly printed publications, The Month, is also published online for people to download as a PDF.  I have to be honest, although I upload the file every month I don’t actually read it!  However, it occurred to me that a publication like this would be an ideal place to advertise.

After a few e-mails and phone calls to the publishers, Cornerstone Vision, I ended up sending them a small advert, and I’m pleased to report that it’s in this month’s Month!  The newspaper will be delivered to churches in Essex and East London soon, so you’ll be able to pick up a copy free from any Anglican church in the area, or of course you can download it to view on your computer.  And my advert appears on page 3!  How cool is that?!  I’ve got another two ads lined up for further issues too, so hopefully I’ll see some return on that.

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We were in Tesco the other day, doing our weekly food shop, and a power extension block caught my eye.  Not because it had a million sockets on it or because it had flashy packaging, but because it seemed to be in the wrong place.  The shelf monkeys at Tesco had displayed them opposite the yoghurts.  So, I thought to myself, what’s so special about these extension blocks that warrants them being put so blatantly on show?

To my surprise, I found it was a clever invention that was recently on BBC’s Dragons’ Den, and which looked to be an amazing piece of brilliance.  The Standby-Saver looks much like an ordinary multi-way extension block, with six sockets and a white plastic case.  What wasn’t quite so familiar was the infra-red receiver and its claim to be ‘green’.  So I bought it, and installed it, and set it up, and found myself unable to contain my delight, hence this post.

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Funny isn’t it, how a good idea can so quickly turn into a nightmare?  Right now I’m a situation where I have two reseller accounts with different companies and no clear way of transferring web sites from one to the other.  The old server is running Virtualmin, and the new server is running cPanel, and apparently the two don’t get along.  I can transfer the files and database, but getting the mail accounts across is proving to be a pain and a half.  I’ve spent almost all day searching the net for information, and there just doesn’t seem to be anything on migrating from Virtualmin to cPanel.

To add to my frustration, my business e-mails aren’t working at the moment.  I’ve sent a query to the company running the server, so hopefully they’re looking into it, but it’s quite crippling because I rely on my e-mails on a daily basis.  Personal e-mails are unaffected, but anything to do with the business is eerily quiet.  And I have no idea if the e-mails are ever going to reappear - they’re not bouncing back, but neither are they appearing in my inbox, they’re just floating off into another dimension or something.

Nothing else to report really, just expressing my frustration at things not working perfectly.  Technology may have come on a long way in the last 50 years, but it’s still got a long way to go before it’s all completely user-friendly.

I love VNC.  I’ve been using VNC for years.  Back when I was working at the University of Essex as the Chaplaincy Assistant I used VNC pretty much every day to use my computer.  These days I don’t use it quite so often, but it still has its uses.

For those not in-the-know, VNC is basically a screen sharing protocol.  When I was ChapAss I would load up my VNC program, tap in the IP address of my computer at home, and VNC would show me my own desktop and allow me to use the computer as if I was physically sat in front of it.  The benefit for me at that point was that I could use all the programs I was familiar with (which were far better than the ones the uni computers provided) and keep all my files in one place.  It worked really well, apart from when my computer crashed - then it meant phoning the house to see if anyone was in who could restart the computer.

Now, working from home, I have no need of VNC in quite the same way.  However, I do have two computers and only one monitor, so it still comes in handy sometimes.  My Mac is my main computer, on which I do pretty much everything.  But I also have a PC dual-booting XP and Ubuntu, mainly for testing purposes - it’s good to know that my web sites work on ‘normal’ computers too.  And Linux.  So rather than connecting a keyboard, mouse and monitor to my PC, taking up valuable space on my desktop, I VNC into the machine when I want to use it, using both computers from one monitor and set of controls.

Of course, there is one small problem that needs to be overcome for this to work properly, and the root of that problem is that traditionally Mac mice have only one button.  With only one mouse button, how do you right click on an operating system that depends on it?

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I suppose it’s a natural progression for all web designers to feel the need to be offering hosting solutions alongside their web sites.  It makes sense from a practical point of view, and of course it’s an extra source of income.  I’ve actually been offering hosting for my clients for a while now, through a friend of mine who has a hosting business, but I’m reaching the point where I need more.  So far I’ve only really been able to offer my hosting packages to people I make web sites for, rather than to anyone else, which is potentially limiting.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time recently investigating all the hosting options available to me.  And there are lots.  Buying individual hosting packages from companies isn’t really an option, as there is so little markup that it’s just not worth considering.  A reseller package is far more suitable, allowing me to set up hosting packages for people without having to worry about the server itself, which is completely managed by the hosting company.  A step up from that and you’ve got Virtual Private Servers (VPS), which gives you a lot more control and room for expansion.  Above that is a Dedicated Server, which is a VPS without the Virtual bit.  I’ll go into more detail on that in a bit.

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As many of you will know, I am trying to sell my beloved Mini.  Some may say that this is the wrong time to be selling a classic car, what with the economic state of the country - the credit crunch means people don’t have much spare money, and petrol prices are so high that an additional car probably won’t be high on people’s agendas.  Still, I can’t really justify (or afford) to have two cars, especially if one of them is just sitting not doing anything.  So it’s for sale.

Unfortunately, having a Ford Escort as well now as my daily runner, the Mini has been left neglected in the garage.  Now, normally this would be a good thing; the garage is dry and safe, so in that sense it’s the best place for it.  What I forgot to do was disconnect the battery.  As a result, the month and a half it’s been sat stationary has drained the battery almost to its limits, the consequence being that the car won’t start.  Ordinarily, not the end of the world.  But it was supposed to be going in for its MOT today, so that’s had to be postponed until I can get the car running again.

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Despite having been in the web design industry for several years, it’s taken until this week to get myself into a community of like-minded people in that respect.  I’m surprised at myself that it’s taken me this long.  Still, better late than never.

It all stemmed from a problem I was having, and searching the net hadn’t provided an answer, so I felt asking some actual people might prove more effective.  And so I found myself wandering around the Web Designer Forum, a UK-based community (well, the web site is based in the UK, the members could be from anywhere I suppose) specifically for web designers like me.  I was able to introduce myself, ask my first question, get some responses, and answer some questions other people had, all within a couple of days of discovering the site.  They seem like a genuinely nice bunch of people, so I’m expecting to hang around this site for some time!

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Yesterday morning when I turned my PC on it refused to let me into Windows.  It got as far as the logon screen and then rebooted itself.  It took until this morning to figure out what the problem was - the USB wireless dongle had come loose and the dodgy hardware connection was causing Windows to panic.  Aww… poor Windows… can’t cope with stuff…

Anyway, a byproduct of that temporary glitch was that I started looking into getting Linux working again.  I say again, it wasn’t actually broken before.  I had installed Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy on the PC over a year ago and never really used it because I couldn’t get it to recognise the wireless dongle I had.  However, having got Windows back online with a CAT5 cable I decided to see if I could persuade Ubuntu to go online too.  And that’s proved to be a mammoth operation, and I’ve got little work done today so far.

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I have been making slow but promising progress on my second attempt Lego Tumbler.  Whereas last time I was able to spent all day every day for a week working on the model, at the moment I only have evenings available to me, so it’s a little slower in coming together.  That said, the progress this evening has been really encouraging and it’s already looking better than the previous version.

I have also been taking plenty of photos, partly for my own reference and geekiness, and partly because I got a lot of comments on YouTube of people asking me how it all worked, and since I’ve not seen anyone else do anything like this on anywhere near the same level of technical accuracy I felt it might be useful to someone!  I’ll try to include some photos in this post, but I’ll be putting them up on a central gallery too, so take a look there if you’re interested. (more…)