Tonight I posted a new page, my Wish List. At this stage it is purely computer parts, but this is my focus at this point in time. I’ve also been ebaying for some of these and haven’t found ‘the right one’ yet. I’m also interested in hearing suggestions for things that I’ve not been specific on.
I just realised that I haven’t posted in a couple of days, and also that I haven’t posted anything remotely computer-geeky at all. It is time to rectify this.
As I’m not likely to have a work permit until some time in December, I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands. This has mostly been spent lazing around with little to no purpose, but I’ve also been thinking up various idea’s and projects to work on.
I’ve been able to implement a few network-changes at UCCN, including remote-includes (and a web interface for staff to make network-wide configuration changes, still in testing), and the safetyNet server (intended to allow young people to chat in a more secure environment than most IRC networks would otherwise permit).
I’ve also been doing some work on some small scripting projects, including the safetyNet bot in mIRC (still needs a lot of work, and may port to PHP at some point). The one I’m working on most is a complete rewrite of a 2-week old project, the Fault Management and Resolution System. This started as being a PHP-based IRC bot that would detect netsplits and send emails to admins, or even text messages if the servers were split for long time periods. It seemed to work in practice, and I then came up with the idea of a ticket-system, where admins would be able to put in notes and ‘close’ incidents whereby they had resolved a problem, so we could keep track of where problems were occuring.
Anyway, the number of ideas being implemented were fast making the code messier than it was ever expected to be, and I fast reached the limitations of the core of the project. With that being a fast-growing problem, I shut down the old system, copied aspects of it, and began work on the new one.
The new system allows much more flexibility with regard to monitoring things. It will allow for staff to be in groups (one or multiple), and where there is a fault or a request it can be assigned to a group (such as server admins, services staff, etc) and to individuals within the groups. It can also be reassigned between groups/individuals as required.
I hope to include some method of tracking how long issues take to be resolved, including as well as excluding how long we wait for other factors, such as an ISP responding to a question, or a user returning our email.
It’s not limited to faults either, tickets for faults or change requests can be manually created by staff, and potentially added by users themselves. The new system will also be much more flexible and hopefully more scalable, allowing for more organisations to utilise the software.
During my final days in New Zealand I spent a few driving around the Wellington Area in particular taking photos of the landscape that I hadn’t thought to photograph before. While being rained out at the south end of the airport runway I happened upon this cute little toy duck sitting on a bench, wistfully looking out to sea as it were.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S9600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/170s, a Focal Length of 66.7mm and an F-stop set at F/4.9, on ISO400.
Two weeks ago the Sunday School class looked at the story in Judges 15 I believe, where Samson kills a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. Last week we put together an infomercial to sell or market the jawbone. Using the jawbone of a deer, belonging to my father-in-law, we unscriptedly performed in order to create what we disrespectfully call, Ass Bone.
Continuing from yesterday’s shot, DFT7226 is again seen hauling the same freight Northbound still, this time at the level crossing at the North end of the town of Otaki.
On May 15th, 1988, a Southbound excursion train hit a milk truck on this same crossing. Fortunately noone was injured, including my dad, who was driving the train. It is also significant because it was my second birthday, and my mum had the joy (end sarcasm) of receiving the ‘dreaded’ phone call from the company, saying he’d been in an accident.
Again, taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/613s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/7.1, on ISO200.
I remember showing this photo to a friend at work once, and he said “That looks like a Honda. About 1990, an Accord?”
It was taken while driving (no, don’t do it) a Honda Ascot (based on the Accord), 1992 model. 4 Cyl 2.0L, 4 speed Auto, very nice car to drive. In the mirror is one of my loves, a train. This a Northbound Freight, headed by DFT 7226, somewhere between Waikanae and Otaki (I believe! I know it’s South of Otaki, North of Paraparaumu).
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/320s, a Focal Length of 10.8mm and an F-stop set at F/4.5, on ISO64.
One of my personal favorites, this shot was taken late on a Friday evening, at the Ava Rail Bridge near Lower Hutt, New Zealand. This is a Wellington Commuter train, heading North towards Upper Hutt.
Standing on the Eastern bank of the Hutt River, the train comes towards the camera. It will then continue, turning a curve North under two road bridges, meeting the Gracefield Industrial Siding and stopping at Woburn station, before continuing.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 10s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/3.2, on ISO200.
A particular day trip with some friends found me at the top of Paekakariki Hill, standing at the lookout on a brokenly clouded day, with a camera. What better opportunity? This is one of the dirtier sea-lines in New Zealand, naturally to the Australian side 😉
To the left of frame is Mana Island, and mid-frame is Paekakariki town. One can fairly easily make out State Highway 1 and the North Island Main Trunk rail link heading south towards the camera.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/613s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/6.4, on ISO64.
One of the IRC Networks I work with (UCCN) is looking at a proposal drawn up recently to allow children under 13 to join us and chat on the network. To begin with, it looked very difficult to do this in a law abiding manner. Then it looked really easy. After studying the “How to Comply” page on the FTC site, it turns out it is somewhere in the middle.
While it will indeed require some changes in the network configuration, as well as in staff policies and such, the most difficult aspect is the consent phase. Ensuring that parents are who they say they are (or at least having a record that verifies to a legal standard that they are who they say they are) is the hardest thing to do.
All in all, the best method found so far is a signed form from the parent sent by post, or by fax. For our purposes, this will also hold some verification information, and technical details regarding the children in particular.
It also means network changes, only permitting underage users to do specific things, and blocking anything else that might endanger them, or that would be out of our control as administrators, and their guardians while on the network.
The other difficulty is going to be designing and building a secure database system for storing the personal information, that will log who accesses what. This is one of my areas of expertise, however, so it shouldn’t be too high on the hard-scale.
Taken over the beach at Petone, near Wellington, New Zealand, the sun sets over the Horokiwi hills.
Not much to say for this one. The wharf is visible near where the water meets the land.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/653s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/6.4, on ISO64.