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ESX Server

I am lucky enough to have a mate that from time to time gives me some of his old computer hardware. Recently he gave me a dual P4 2.4 Ghz XEON system along with (from memory) 5GB of RAM.

He installed ESX on it for me along with XP to only run the VI client – I feel a bit dirty running XP.

I am as happy as a pig in shit. Will slowly move my physical machines across to the new lump of hardware as VM’s using VMware converter.

Have already run into a problem getting an old Ubuntu 7.10 server install into ESX. It would appear that Ubuntu binds the NIC to a MAC and hence to an interface (eth0). ESX gives the VM NIC an new MAC address so its not getting on the network at the moment.

Looks like udev needs to be fooled into reassigning eth0 to the virtual NIC’s MAC address. Stay tuned (I’m sure you are all bursting to know what happens).

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TVrss.net down!

Ah bugger it all!

I just found this wonderfull site which has been around for year and now its gone.  Anyone have any idea what is going on or should I swap to showRSS??  The site says

Website downtime

Please check here soon!

In the mean time you can visit eztv at http://eztv.it/

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tvRSS

Looks like mininova is doing some strange things which may have an impact on my ability to get my favourite Intl. TV shows. I came across tvrss.net the other day – it will nicely fix any problems by being an independent RSS feed source. Nice one.

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rTorrent RSS with bashpodder Pt.2

We getting the DNS-323 to run the bashpodder script for the RSS feed to be used in rTorrent turned out to be trickier than I thought.

It basically boiled down to environmental variables in cron being different than for my user on the NAS.

I have solved this issue now, my post on the DNS-323 hack forum will help you here.

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rTorrent and bashpodder on DNS-323

I have finally been able to get rTorrent and bashpodder playing together on the DNS-323 NAS. In short bashpodder acts as the RSS feed reader and downloads the torrent file to a directory that rTorrent watches and then rTorrent kicks off the torrent download. Its light and NOT a resource hog (which is important for the DNS-323 as its got little resources to start with).

Please see my write up at the DNS-323 hack forum.

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The folks and VoIP

Well at long last the folks figured out how to call me using the SIPbroker PSTN gate way in Milan last night.

What is it about old people, you try to be very very clear on what they need do but they get it wrong.

To start with they couldn’t get through to the SIPbroker PSTN number correctly – I have no idea why.

Eventually they got through to the Milan SIPbroker PSTN gateway number fine, however, when they entered the number in for me at the prompt (by the way my SIPBroker alias is *011612409) they would then press the ‘send’ button on the mobile they were using, this would mess it all up as SIPBrokers DTMF would recognise the ‘send’ key-press as well. You see what I mean!

Eventually, after they called me the old expensive way I finally told them of the error of their ways and after a few more tries they got through.

I must say the quality of the conversation was very good, good clear voice and very little lag. This is extremely good given the lack of $$$ you pay for the service.

Good one SIPBroker! Well done Mum & Dad!

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Ubiquity

Wow, this is a very cool extension for firefox, check it out if you get the chance.

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My bike broke

Bugger!

My trusty 1977 Honda 400/4 Super Sport let me down at uni the other day. I think it is the ignition switch/barrel not making contact some-where in side it.

Off to the wrecker for me to find a new barrel/assembly.

I’m currently getting around on a jazzed up Vespa PX200, its noisy, Candy Apple Red and shiny, it does however get me from A to B which is all I need it to do.

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Brother MFC-440CN and the eeePC (701)

My wife has been bothering me for some time about her eeePC not working with our printer. Today I finally got around to fixing it. Thanks to this blog I was successful.  Having learnt from Adam’s experience I first created the directory…

mkdir /etc/printcap.local

then copied /etc/printcap to /etc/printcap.local by…

sudo cp /etc/printcap /etc/printcap.local

After that I also created the directory…

sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd.

Passing the command…

dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc440cnlpr-1.0.1-1.i386.deb

installed the lpd without a hitch. I then installed the CUPS driver using…

dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc440cncupswrapper-1.0.1-1.i386.deb

and this to was successful.

I then went into the eeePC’s printer setup and added a new printer.

  • Type = Network printer
  • Attribute = “other”
  • Path = socket://192.168.x.xx:9100 (you will need to put the IP address in this bit for your network setup)
  • Selected brother for the manufacturer and then selected the MFC-440CN driver from the list which will be there now thanks to the steps we have previously taken.
  • After this I selected ‘yes’ to print a test page.

It worked. Wohoooo!

My wife loves me again, she is now busy making up for lost time and furiously contributing to the deforestation of Indonesia.