When I got into the office this morning I found a Dell D630 waiting for me that'd only taken two weeks to arrive due, I'm told, to waiting for a battery. Anyway. The machine had turned up with Vista installed on it. The University is rolling out Vista slowly, but it's by no means well supported yet, and there's still a lot of unknowns with it.

Popping in the XPSP2 CD I'd got ready resulted in the laptop giving me a BSOD, with the helpful error message of STOP: 0x00000007b. I've got an XPSP3 CD which resulted in the installation finding no drives to install to - this was a little more helpful.

To resolve this, pop into the BIOS (hit F2 during startup) and change the SATA operation mode from AHCI to ATA, and also disable the Flash Cache.

Once done, you should be able to install XPSP2 or SP3 as you would normally.

Sioned decided to book a holiday for us a few weeks back through Thomson. We left on 14 June from Manchester, headed to Verona airport, before our final destination of Parc Hotels Italia's Parc Hotel Paradiso hotel. When the booking was made, the following was specified as absolute requirements:
o Kettle in room (for making up Gruffydd's feeds)
o Fridge in room (for keeping said feeds cool)
o Quiet room (such that he can sleep - he's a light sleeper)
o A proper cot (not a travel cot - something for him to sleep in)
o Interweb in the room (taking away a geek's interweb is cruel)

All pretty basic stuff for a 4-star hotel, you'd think. On arrival, we found that the hotel room we'd been given had the following:
o Kettle in room
o Fridge in room
So an overall FAIL so far. We asked at reception about the cot since that would be quite easy to solve. Except it wasn't - the only cot they could offer was a travel cot, the sides on which weren't removable. We're currently at the stage of him only going to sleep if there's no sides on the cot, then putting them on once he's asleep so that he can't roll out. The only solution here was for him to sleep on an open bed next to us and hope for the best.

Saturday night closed in pretty quickly as we'd arrived relatively late, and we found that a wedding that the hotel was holding had their party in the courtyard area outside our room. Our room was 2 rooms away from something called the Grill Bar which was being, unsurprisingly, used as the bar for the event. We spoke to our rep the following morning when he visited the hotel and in turn he spoke to reception about it, who told us that there'd only be noise outside the room at the weekends. We asked if we could take another room as it would likely be noisy on the Friday night before we were due to leave, but were told that the hotel was full. On asking about the rest of the stuff, we were told that there wasn't anything that could be done about it. In true British spirit, we decided to soldier on.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the weather was overcast, but still nice and warm. We had a good few days, good food, nice and relaxing (alas no interweb in the room but I managed to find open wireless in the basement of the hotel near one of the restaurants). Wednesday rocked around with blazing sunshine. Again, another nice day. I mentioned above about the Grill Bar. On Wednesday evening I noticed a PA sitting on a trolley in the corner of the Grill Bar. At around 2130, hearing the impressively loud sounds of a drum kit, I realised that the PA was being used. Now.

Anyone who's got, or has had young children will know that they need routine, and also that they tend to go to sleep quite early. Also, this model is a light sleeper. 2200, the usual time for sleep rolled around and the entertainment outside started belting out crap covers of Elton John, U2 et al. We asked at reception about moving to another room but were told non were available. Ok, fine, we can put up with it for one night. Asking if the entertainment would be outside for the forseeable future (ie the next few days) and we find that "If the weather is good, entertainment is outside". That doesn't bode so well.

Thursday rocks around and - yep - blazing sunshine. Sioned isn't too happy when I mentioned that I'd seen the same "musician" from the night before and the same PA (which I'd taken a nosy at - 500W is pretty impressive for a small venue, I feel) being set up. Again, we speak to the reception staff who tell us that no rooms are available (even after we point out we'd seen people checking out during the day). The music finishes just after 2300, with the bar remaining open until just after midnight. It was at this time the staff elected to reset the seating by dragging metal tables across the slabs outside for around 15 minutes.

Net result of this was a baby that was... rather unhappy, and rather disturbed. Sioned was in tears frequently after a distinct lack of sleep due to having to deal with a confused baby.

We saw our rep again on Friday morning and with pressure from him were given an offer of alternative accommodation in a 2-star property. We asked if we could see the property, but, after 90 minutes, the staff were still unable to produce a key to a room there. We also found that if we were to move, we'd be required to sign a disclaimer (in Italian only) that would waive all rights to a refund (in part or in full) and also require us to not make enter into any discussion with Thomson (the tour operator). Needless to say, this offer was declined.

With our options running out, we elected to book a flight home. We managed to get an (expensive) last minute flight from Venice airport (a 2 hour drive away) and also through our rep, Craig, secure a taxi to take us there. To give you an idea of how bad things had become, we were prepared to pay in excess of £500 to travel home a day early.

One advantage of being a pessimistic tech is that I was able to gain the following:
o Audio recordings of the discussions (some might say arguments) with the manager and reception staff
o Audio recordings of a member of staff confirming the times the music and bar would close
o Video recordings showing the location of the room in relation to the PA
o Video recordings showing the time and audio levels

Hopefully we'll find a satisfactory conclusion to this through our tour operator, although this blog posting is primarily Google fodder to try and warn people about the quality of the hotel and their customer service. That said, the rep from our tour operator was immensely helpful and went well beyond the call of duty to try and help to rectify the situation. Certainly Thomson and Craig did what they could to help - the issue is the service that the Parc Hotel Italia staff and specifically the staff at Parc Hotel Paradiso in Peschiera provided during our stay.

As a general question to the masses, are we being unreasonable? Is it ok to expect that a hotel can provide what's requested, and, furthermore, provide a quiet room for a baby?

The Bangor University Summer Ball took place over this weekend, headlined by Athlete, and I was there taking photos. This was a pretty hard going test, primarily on the amount of time I was on my feet, with the camera in my hands - around 9 hours. One of the things I like most about the Nikon bodies is that they just feel so at home in my hands. The D2x isn't light by any measure, but, after that amount of time to still not feel like my wrist is about to snap is pretty impressive. I was also dragging all of my lenses around with me and various other stuff in my Lowepro AW100 bag - again, this caused me no issues at all - no pain in my shoulders or anything. So, all in all, a good night. The processing took me a fair while to do - the results are available at http://photos.garysmith.org.uk/ball08/

My installation of Office 2008 under OS X automatically updated earlier today and seemed to break itself quite spectacularly. After the update had installed, any of the applications on the suite refused to start, instead automatically starting the installer for the update again, and then trying to check for updates.

The way around this is to make sure you've got your serial number, then delete the following files:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office\ 2008/Microsoft\ Office\ 2008\ Settings.plist rm /Applications/Microsoft\ Office\ 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

After this, click on one of the applications that are part of the Office suite, it'll take you through the registration (asking for your serial) and then that's it - sorted.

I've been using Parallels on my Macbook Pro since I purchased it, because I still need to do a fair bit of stuff in a Windows environment. I occasionally do some work in Visual Basic, as well as Access - both of which aren't available under OS X. I'd been running the 3170 build for some time, and whilst it was totally stable, there was an irritating bug in it which would cause the fans to run at full whack (around 6kRPM according to iStat Pro) after a few minutes use. The processor and memory usage would rise significantly. Until now, I'd just put up with it.

Obviously, this was an older version. Today I upgraded to Build 5592, available here which certainly seems to have fixed the problem. The look and feel of the container has changed as well, and it just feels, well, nicer. Well worth the upgrade.

Hafodunos Hall is up for sale. Again. It looks like they're accepting comedy bids for it. I really, really hope someone takes it on this time that can actually bring it back to what it once was. There's so much that can be done with it.

I've got a Cisco router here in front of me, the router is "reconditioned", but was received with a console password on it. Now, this is interesting for two reasons. As it's reconditioned (apparently) it shouldn't have a config on it anyway, and even so, whoever had it beforehand should really have cleared the config off.

More interestingly, the router is identifying itself with the name of a medical company. Interesting. So, rommon the box, get into it and do a sh start and see what we've got.

Username and password for the VPN service that said company uses, further identifying information for the company, firewall rules, SNMP server information, and, of course, the console password (in type 7, so easily breakable) for the router. What says that the same password is used on a number of bits of their kit?

It's not difficult - really. This is basic network security stuff. Just clear any configs off before the router gets taken away.

I'm a big advocate of using flash in indoor photography to make sure you get the photo. I hate the disappointment of reviewing afterwards and finding blur in the photos which, when corrected in Photoshop still doesn't look right. Visiting Leicester yesterday we were at my Grandparent's house which gets a good amount of natural light in through the conservatory and managed to get some excellent results without using flash. Indeed, this photo, when put through Photoshop for colours/levels/contrast didn't require anything at all - essentially as it came off the camera. The same also applied to this photo. Hopefully with the sun making more of an appearance now, I'll be able to play with natural light a little bit more.

I've used Google webmaster tools for quite a while now, primarily for work stuff. That said, I've also got my personal site and this blog submitted to it.

I've been perusing the top search queries that bring people in to the sites - some of the search terms are rather interesting, leading me to wonder how the site had become so high on the list. Others terms are related vaguely to what I post, but then I know that there's nothing closely related to that subject matter. Some examples:

"how to access ip address for cisco aironet 1130 through hyperterminal" "cisco 1231 won't boot" "Nikon D3 resetting" "Possible spyware infection detected"

Maybe I need to post some more tech foo on here.

One of the issues I'm slightly concerned about with regards to Gruffydd growing up is that my parents - indeed, most of my family aren't going to see vast sections of this, as they live in Leicester, over 150 miles away. We're doing a lot of stuff with photos, and some stuff with video as well, but the video stuff is merely snapshots.

I've spent today playing around with: o QTSS (Quicktime Streaming Server) o Quicktime Broadcast

Quicktime Broadcast is a funky little bit of software available from Apple for OSX that takes a feed either from an iSight camera, or from a Firewire input. I've rigged up a Canon XM2 to the Firewire port (the same camera that's used for the snapshot videos). Broadcast then has various options for encoding the video and audio - as well as framerate and so on. There's various network options - if your network supports multicast, then there's an option for that. You can also do manual (single) unicast, and automatic unicast. I'm using automatic unicast via the server in London.

The server is running QTSS which compiles quickly and easily on Debian Etch (make sure you've got a qtss user added before you run ./Install otherwise it won't work properly - this doesn't seem to be mentioned in the documentation, but you do get an error whilst it's running saying that the script can't chown some files because the user doesn't exist...)

From here, it's simply a matter of tuning the setup against what you're wanting to do. My parents have been happily watching the stream using Quicktime Player from Leicester, which is what I'd intended. I've tuned our setup to 2fps - the reason for this is it gives the overall best frame quality and audio quality at 320x240. This takes around 28kB/s which is pretty much the size of the upload path over our DSL.

The reason I chose to use the server in London is there's a chance my Grandparents (and obviously, anyone else) will want to watch at the same time as say my parents. The London server obviously has the bandwidth to cope with this. In essence, the London server offers the ability to have more than one client viewing the stream at any one time.

Photos of the setup are here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7306123.stm

On a few cases, ITV have cut away from the race or qualifying just as something big has happened - that, or something big has happened whilst the adverts have been on. Hopefully, this will see things back at they should be. As long as they don't interrupt the coverage with whatever rugby/football/blah is going on, it'll all be fine. I wonder if they'll poach the commentators from ITV? Everyone apart from James Allen, that is.

There's a saying amongst techies that gaffer tape can fix pretty much anything. That, and that it holds the world together. We've been having some difficulties getting the baby to sleep recently as he doesn't seem to like lying flat. We'd also noticed that he's taken to sitting in his activity chair really well. He'll happily spend all day in it, and, importantly, likes to sleep in it.

The difficulty we've got is that we have a sleep apnea monitor. Each sensor for this is rigid, and roughly the side of an A4 piece of paper. The activity chair is soft on all sides. Trying to put the two together was clearly going to be difficult.

I ended up gaffer taping the sensor across the back of the chair, so his back is on it. The top is gaffer taped in place, and the bottom held in place using cable ties (so that his weight doesn't cause the tape to stretch and thus lose contact with the sensor). The top is gaffered because the top of the chair is circular and cable ties won't hold on it without slipping.

It looks rough and ready, but it works. All those years of working in theatre have taught me something...

I mentioned previously that my trusty Leatherman Wave has been away for repair. Just to close this off, after getting back this morning, I found a package from Kendal containing a brand new Leatherman. Turns out they'd discontinued the model I had, and instead of repairing it have given me a new one. Yay!

So - where did I get back from? We've been out this morning to register Gruffydd's birth. Lucky him, he now gets to pay taxes when he starts earning. :)

During the week I usually get up around 0720 and head in to the office, so attempting to keep with the routine, I got up with Sioned & Gruffydd at around 0700ish, did the usual stuff (feed, change), had some breakfast and whatnot before the midwife arrived. Straight after that, we headed over to Bangor and dropped in on a few people, including the offices I work for, all in all taking around two hours. This afternoon, we had the audiologist from the hospital over to check Gruffydd's hearing, which was all fine. Immediately after that, we had the Doctor over (he's sort of a family friend) to do more tests. Straight after that, Sioned's parents came over - I'd asked her Dad for a hand with a wardrobe we'd bought from Ikea which is, frankly, crap. I was having problems hanging the doors on it - they wouldn't hang straight. He pointed out this is because one bit of wood is warped, one bowed, and the whole thing seems to have twisted. Top marks to Ikea on that one, then. We made the best of a bad job before they headed off and we had some tea. Gruffydd elected to have his tea just as Sioned was serving up. Whilst this was happening, I was wondering why my laptop had lost the DHCP lease from the server, but thought I was doing something a little odd.

No. Wrong. Way more than a little odd. The UPS in the rack had switched off. I suspect we'd had low incoming power most of the day due to the storms, and the batteries eventually ran out. On powering everything back up, I seem to be one disk short of the quota - fortunately it's a backup drive, so it's not all bad. The issue being it's the one with the bootloader on it. Arse.

I'll have a quiet day tomorrow, please.

Do all babies smell like barbecue and look like Furbies, or just this one?

I'd quite like this if it was possible to get the control software onto something smaller than a laptop... http://revver.com/video/719432/etch-a-sketch-clock/

Sioned had to stay in the hospital overnight as they were concerned about how she was healing. She was adamant she was fine, but decided that their advise was best heeded. I ended up getting to bed about midnight, got up at 0715 and headed over to the University to drop some bits off, before getting to the Hospital at around 0830. Fortunately, the nursing staff held true to their promise yesterday of getting us out quickly and we were heading out to the car at 0945. Mum, Dad, Laura, Grandma and Grandad have come over today to visit us, they arrived just before 12. We spent some time at our house, and have been at Sion's Mum & Dad's for the rest of the day. Lots more photos, lots of video - pretty much everything is as you'd expect it to be. Still quiet, though, which is good. :-)

Sioned woke me up at 0411 and said that she was suffering some pain and said that she wanted to call the hospital for an opinion on if what was being experienced was the early stages of labour. The result of the phone call saw us dressed, in the car and with the required stuff and heading for the A55 at 0431. After driving at speeds around *cough*, we arrived at the hospital a mere 15 minutes later (yep, I'm quite pleased with that). After heading to the required ward, we were put in a side room where examinations took place and the on-call Doctor gave us the two options: Sioned could delivery naturally, or they could start to organise a Caesarian section. Since there was a schedule for the section tomorrow, it'd take some organisation to get this ready in time. They suggested that, at this time, she was 8cm dialated. Between us, we decided it'd be best for a natural delivery. At 0705, Gruffydd Cynan Smith was born, weighing 7lb1/2oz. Head-toe length was 50cm, head circumference 32.5cm. Photos are at http://photos.gruffyddsmith.com, and video will appear shortly at http://video.gruffyddsmith.com. Sioned is fine, and now able to eat normally again. Baby is fine and seems to respond to stimuli as expected.

I think it's important to know your own limitations, primarily so that you don't make an utter idiot of yourself. People remember stuff like that. This pretty much encapsulates that idea. Avril Lavigne trying to cover System of A Down - Chop Suey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfM1U74tMJw

Reports have been circulating for the last few days now about one of the security mainstays of many of the larger web services such as Google, Microsoft Live and Yahoo being broken. CAPTCHAs are those little boxes of text which are obscured in some way - you usually have to enter your interpretation of them to prove that you're a human. The Wikipedia article for CAPTCHAs is quite good at the moment and also has examples of CAPTCHAs. The reason for this is primarily to stop software from signing up to these services and then using them to send out spam. For instance, having software sign up to the Google services means that GMail accounts can be created, then from here, spam can be sent.

You'll appreciate, if you look at some of the examples shown in the Wikipedia article that, in some cases, it can be difficult even for a human to decode what's being displayed. Indeed, there's numerous times that I've got the test wrong. With this in mind, it's somewhat surprising to find that software developers are now at the stage - if reports are to be believed - that software is able to get the CAPTCHA test correct in as many as 20% of cases.

This presents us with the question of where to go next. Spammers, and the software developers that work with them are always playing a game of catchup - the good guys build em up, and the spammers will knock em down again. So whatever the next phase is, they'll find a way around it - or solve it. It'll just take some time.

As it stands, they're currently able to solve - at best - 20% of the CAPTCHAs presented to them. This will only get better, but I think it's going to be a long time before they're even at 50%. I think that one of the better ways forward at the moment is CAPTCHA + something else, so you essentially have to pass two tests to validate. There's numerous ideas which would possibly work. Some ideas off the top of my head include matching cards together. The method would be something along the lines of you being shown five cards. Two of which are half of a face, with the third being half a cat, the fourth half of a dog, and the fifth half of a car. Clearly, the two halves of the face match. Another would be an array of ten cards, 8 with pictures of animals (for instance) and two with humans. Pick the humans.

The issue you've got to get around with anything like the above is that at the moment it's totally non-standard. People the world over generally recognise CAPTCHA and know what to do with it. With any new test, you've got to get around the language barrier, and possibly any cultural barrier. Those in the UK at least will know the HSBC adverts - what if people in some part of the world get given a new test involving a black cat? Is this unlucky for them? Different things have different meanings, so anything like this would possibly need checking to make sure it has no negative connotations.

Plenty to think about, though.