Planet North East

Selling outside of your comfort zone

2010-09-07T11:00:47+00:00

Software/IT startup?

Delivered by GENI, organised by Codeworks on behalf of the Sunderland Software City initiative this unique one day workshop has been specifically designed to help software and IT start-ups discover new markets, pitch effectively and win new business.

Early sales are crucial to start ups and our workshop will help you to identify the areas of selling that are outside of you comfort zone and turn them into business development opportunities. Read more here http://bit.ly/SCCcomfortzone

Review: Jabra Clipper Bluetooth Headset

2010-09-06T18:14:39+00:00

I've reviewed a couple of Bluetooth headsets on this site over the past months, and while I was quite impressed with both of them, they didn't really fit my use pattern. I spend a lot of time listening to audio from my phone; sometimes it's music, but mostly it's audiobooks or podcasts. That being the case, I usually have a pair of stereo headphones connected to my phone. Sadly that isn't helped my the position of the headphone socket on my Dell Streak (review coming soon), so I when MobileFun.co.uk gave me the opportunity to review a stereo Bluetooth headset, I jumped at the chance.

The Jabra Clipper suits my personal requirements very well, and judging my the number of people I see on my commute with headphones connected to their phones, I think it'll suit a lot of others too. The device is in two parts - the clip, which houses the Bluetooth radio, controls, battery and mic, and the headphones, which are a set of in-ear buds on a shorter-than-normal wire, but otherwise not dissimilar to the pair that I wear normally, with three sizes of optional rubber tips.

The great advantage of this is that you can replace the provided headphones with your own set. Personally I'm using the supplied ones because they are the style that I prefer and I think they're certainly on a par with my normal headphones of choice. However, if you're the sort of person who likes to enjoy their music through a set of big cans, you're golden. There's no reason why you couldn't plug in a pair of noise cancelling headphones either. The only issue would be that you'd end up with a lot of excess cable that the supplied buds don't have. I'm glad to see that Jabra gives you the option since it seems to me that a lot of companies seem to think that they are capable of making the best set of headphones, to suit anyone, and staunchly refuse to be persuaded otherwise.

The clip itself is both light and sturdy. Jabra emphasise that you shouldn't open it more than 4mm or terrible things will happen, but I don't see that as a problem, having clipped it to a number of garments and the strap of my bag. Aside from a small hole for the microphone and +/- labels for the volume the face is plan black, but with a raised multi-function button and raised ring around it where the volume controls are. The only other features are "Jabra" along the spine of the clip and the headphone socket at one end of the hinge. Apparently we have the Danes to thank for the clean design; adding to their wonderful design back-catalogue which contains such successes as pastries and LEGO. Awesome.

Charging is done by a micro-USB connector under a discrete rubber cover on the opposite end of the hinge to the headphone socket. I found that a full charge (after a couple of cycles) got me a good 5.5 hours of playback with a couple of short calls thrown in.

One of the problems when reviewing a Bluetooth headset is that if you have any issues, you're never quite certain whether it's an issue with the headset or the device that you have it paired with. When I was making notes for this review, I had a few things that I'd marked down as "cons" that I later attributed to some combination of the implementation of the Bluetooth stack, or the media playing software, on my phone. One media player on my phone decided that a short press of the multi-function button should skip to the next track while another used it for play/pause. There's nothing more confusing than inconsistency, but that's not the headset's fault. Other times I would find that playback would be fine, but after I'd paused it for whatever reason, when I restarted the playback it would stutter as if buffering for a while until I got sick of hearing it and either turned off Bluetooth on the phone, or power-cycled the headset so that the connection was re-made and I could continue smooth playback.

When I say "smooth playback" I really mean it. It's been very rare that I've been able to tell that I'm not using wired headphones while I've been using the Clipper. The Bluetooth link to my phone seems to be very solid unless I really make a point of getting things in the way like metal and body parts at the same time (I don't have any metal body parts, at the moment, so I don't know if they'd cause problems on their own - if I'm able to keep my head alive Futurama-style when my body dies and stick it on to a T1000-like body in the future I'll try it out and update this review). The range was pretty decent too - I was happily able to listen to my phone playing away on the kitchen bench while I did a few jobs in the garage, provided I kept roughly in line with the open door and didn't get too much wall in the way.

Of course playback is only part of the story and if it was rubbish at making calls everything that I've said up to now would be moot to a point. I'm not big on talking on my mobile personally, but I would say that 90% of the calls that I've made/received in the last few weeks have been using the Clipper and not once have I had to repeat myself or has the person on the other end commented that I was difficult to hear. That's good enough for me.

All in all, I think this is an excellent headset. I'm using it daily and expect that I will continue to do so for a good while to come. The dynamic range on the audio is certainly good enough for me and it's a very neat, portable device. If I had to be really picky, the maximum volume could be a notch higher for use with quieter recordings, since it would be nice to have a little bit more available even if I wasn't going to use it most of the time - normally though it's plenty loud enough that if you're listening to music, you shouldn't keep it on max volume for long.

The Jabra Clipper is available from MobileFun.co.uk for a shade under £35, which makes it one of the lower priced Bluetooth stereo headsets, so I would say it was great value.

A tribute to a former colleague

2010-09-06T16:22:26+00:00

Last week marked the tenth anniversary of the death of a former colleague of mine. I was disappointed not to be able to make the memorial evening last week, so wanted to write a post reflecting on some of his success at work whilst I knew him and how we can learn from his achievements.

When I joined Harley-West Training in London and the world of selling, Andy was already successful. He was enjoying increases in sales revenue and was making and exceeding his targets each month. He was the new top-performer and acted like it.

It hadn’t always been so.

The story goes that he joined a few years before I arrived and struggled to make an impact. He freely admitted that he’d had no focus, hadn’t taken his work seriously and didn’t even try to understand the world of IT – the world our clients lived in. This made for a difficult couple of years. Missing targets, a lack of respect from peers and managers, wondering whether it was going to work out.

Success in sales is down to many things. Timing is certainly one of them. In my last post I quoted Elmer Letterman who owns one of my favourite quotes; “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity“. This is directly applicable to how Andy found his success.

In the year before I joined the business Andy discovered his focus. He had begun to learn about the market he worked in. He started to build strong business relationships at a hardware vendor and found out that they were soon to begin accrediting their partners and indeed every engineer who supported their hardware. He researched all of the medium and large IT companies that would soon be required to engage in certification training for their engineers. He encouraged and assisted his/our company to become a certified training partner. He worked the business opportunity from multiple angles to guarantee success.

He worked hard to make sure the preparation was done for the moment when the opportunity materialised. Not really lucky but seen as such by some.

By the time I joined the company this certification programme was well underway and growing rapidly. As one of only three, then two certified training partners in the UK, we enjoyed huge success and built a business stream that focused on supporting the certification needs of the reseller market. We delivered extensive programmes – both public and private – not only in the UK but across Europe. Through the strong relationships Andy had built we became the partner of choice for the vendor themselves – training all of their engineers, their partners and receiving recommendations when trying to win other new business.

I benefited hugely from the opportunities this programme presented, including winning my first major contract as a sales person and growing an account to £1M in the process. I also learnt a lot along the way.

I guess I have Andy to thank in-part for that. Funny really, but until I sat down to write this post I had not really appreciated his part in my rapidly gained/earned success at that time.

Our company expanded the certification market, developing further certification programmes for other vendors. Of course there were many other people involved, not least the amazing technical trainers who were held in the highest regard throughout the industry. However, I wanted to share this story to show how one person’s focused step into understanding a business can have such an impact. Others caught on quickly and achieved success from the programme too, however, Andy had had the foresight to embrace the opportunity, to work hard to understand what it meant at the time and to build relationships to make it a bigger programme as the future rolled forwards. He also prospected hard to make sure he covered all of the bases in terms of the target market. He gave himself a competitive edge against his peers.

I think about Andy often. I remember asking his advice one day at the start of my sales career as my own success was building. I wanted to know whether I should push to get a deal in or wait until the following month (I’d already reached my monthly quota). His reply included two well-worn phrases:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Make hay whilst the sun shines

I have passed similar advice on to countless sales people over the years. You never know what tomorrow brings. Never ever sit on a deal. Always aim to over-achieve.

I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since Andy’s untimely passing away. Hopefully you can take something away from this story that will benefit you, like I have benefited too.

A little planning can go a long way

2010-09-02T22:22:48+00:00

A little planning can go a long way.

If you have attended an Engleby Associates’ workshop previously you will know that. This little story shows how planning and preparation are not just activities for the workplace but can help you wherever you are, whenever you are there.

We have just returned from a lovely summer holiday. We bought a camper-van earlier this year (a heart, rather than a head purchase) and spent a very enjoyable couple of weeks in August travelling around The Netherlands and Germany. Whilst we had a great time we did make a few mistakes pre-holiday which, if we had got right, would have made our holiday even more relaxing and enjoyable. I’ve been thinking about these and how they relate to my work.

The power of Planning. The power of Preparation.

Elmer Letterman said: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”.

In our haste to make sure we arrived in time for the ferry we left our road map of Europe behind – home alone. This meant that, until we cracked and bought a new map, Laura was navigating (actually pretty well all things considered) using a large scale map of Europe. Not the easiest thing to do unless you are intent on driving the motorway from one major city to the next. Think major artery, route 1. A lack of preparation.

If we had planned effectively we would have researched a few campsites prior to embarking on our holiday. We could have still been spontaneous and maintained our desire to be able to follow the sun (or the sun on my iPhone app at least), however, we would have known more about where we were heading. We would have been able to chose from a range of pre-selected sites where great facilities existed and where our kids would have had lots to do and plenty of water to swim in.

We were lucky.

We mostly picked good sites and only had a few of those, it’s getting dark, we are not sure where we are going and we have no idea what or where a suitable campsite is.

So, remember, a little planning can go a long way – at work, at school or at home.

I'm speaking at Scotch on the Rocks!

2010-09-01T20:03:00+00:00

Today the Scotch on the Rocks Speakers list was release by Andy Allan and his motley crew . [More]

New Russian Space Programme

2010-08-28T23:08:00+00:00

<p>Fueled entirely by airbags...</p> <p><object height="417" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Sry6eJ570gQ&hl=en&fs=1" /></param><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Sry6eJ570gQ&hl=en&fs=1" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="window" height="417" width="500"></embed></object></p> <p>Poor bastard! XD</p>

Truly mixing your components

2010-08-27T07:45:00+00:00

I've recently been looking at different ways to extend and reuse code within various frameworks with a couple of the guys at work. We looked a all aspects of the systems that go to make up a web application and the content management that is involved... [More]

Who Will End Your Recession

2010-08-25T20:58:02+00:00

This is an article I wrote a few months ago. It sentiments seem as relevant today as they did then...

"In a recent conversation with a wise and experienced business owner he told me that rather later than many had the recession paid a visit to his business. More than a year had passed since many businesses had first felt the pinch of the credit crunch and yet during this time he had been able to continue with business mostly as usual. But then quite suddenly the volume of leads started to dry up, and prices and margins fell as competition increased.

However, most interesting was his reaction to this crisis. He could have cried into his coffee and blamed the market. He could have slashed headcount and gone into survival mode. But rather than look inward for the solution to his problems, he decided to look outward and drive up his sales. His view was that there was still plenty of business out there. After all, he said, his £3m business was just a very small part of a sector still worth £billions.

On reflection he realised that he and his business had got a little too complacent. They had operated with a “business as usual” mindset despite the myriad of changes going on around them. So my friend has fired up his sales team, reviewed their marketing strategy, and most of all got back on the road to meet and talk to the customers who his business had perhaps started to take somewhat for granted. His view was that it was complacency rather than the general economic environment that had made his recession.

So who is responsible for your recession? You, the general economic environment, or a bit of both? The businesses that credit the general economic environment for their woes have resigned themselves to a pessimistic powerlessness that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consequently their business is functioning rather too much like it was pre-recession despite being in the middle of a rather deep and sustained downturn.

Although it is true that some sectors have been hit harder by the recession than others, construction for instance, I've come to see that what separates the performance of one business from another is not just the performance of their market, but moreover how effectively they have adapted to the changes in their market. Proof of the pudding being a construction sector business I visited last week that has grown market share, maintained turnover, and continued to return a profit.

The struggling businesses have changed little or nothing about their business and their approach to the market since the on set of the downturn. They are selling the same products, aiming to earn the same margins, using the same marketing techniques that they were before the downturn, and wondering why business is tougher now.

Some businesses have made some changes, but have stopped short of what politicians call a “root and branch” overhaul. Typically they will have laid off some staff, and put a bit more pressure on sales, but failed to take a step back and think about how they would run their business if they were to start all over again. There are surviving, but is “not dying” a worthy goal?

The businesses that are doing better than the rest have rigorously examined their organisation and their markets, and fearlessly driven change throughout. These fearless businesses have asked and answered questions like:

• What changes are taking place with our customers' buying behaviour?
• What product and services does the market want now?
• How will all this affect our cash-flow and profitability?
• Where have we allowed slack to creep into our business?
And most importantly:
• If we were to start all over again, what would be different?

So let me close by asking you 2 questions. Firstly, which of the following best describes your situation?
• We're keeping our heads down and hoping it will pass soon; we hope we'll survive
• We've made some changes but nothing too fundamental; we think we'll survive
• We've gone back to the drawing board and challenged every assumption; we're not surviving, we're prospering.

And which best describes the situation you'd like to be in?"

We banked our first cheque! StormMQ is trading!

2010-08-25T10:09:11+00:00

A Smith Electric Vehicle

We started the development work for StormMQ over two years ago…you can only imagine how happy (and relieved) we were when we rolled out our first customer installation this month!

StormMQ is a startup company who provide a managed message queue service using the AMQP protocol….if you dont know what a message queue is you can think of it as a system that can move vast amounts of data from one site of your business to another in a fast, secure and reliable way.

Smith Electrical Vehicles (www.smithelectric.com) approached us around four months ago and asked us to help them transfer data from their fleet of electric vehicles to their central database servers. It sounds like an easy project, but when you factor in the fact that they want to collect 50 data points a second, on 550 vehicles, on three different continents, over the GSM network. That’s 27,500 pieces of data a second!

Custom built device

When we joined this project the development was already very advanced. Smith Electric had engaged a number of development companies to work together to produce the various components of the system including the device that was to be installed in the vehicles and the servers that were to collect the data and process it. We got involved when they wanted these various components to talk together.

Our first task was to write an application to get the data off the custom device in the vehicle in a secure way. Usually this would be an easy thing to do as the AMQP protocol combined with a SSL stack will do this very easily…but we had a small problem…this device only had 32k of RAM! We had to fit an AMQP client and a custom SSL stack into that space! I don’t know how he did it, but Eamon (our CTO) got the job done in a few weeks and then spent a few days with hardware designers getting it working. In doing this Eamon also wrote a custom AMQP client for embedded C….something that I am sure we will be able to reuse.

StormMQ Dedicated Cluster

Now that we had a system to get the data off the vehicle we needed to spec a message queue to manage it. For this task we installed a dedicated cluster of StormMQ in our new Middleborough datacentre. This was a mission critical service so we chose 2 DELL R815 servers with dual 8 core processors and 16Gb of RAM backed up by five commodity servers for redundancy and failover. This looks like overkill, but we wanted to spread the load across a few servers so that we could deal with bursts of data and also to protect against downtime due to potential hardware issues.

At the other side of the StormMQ cluster Smith Electric worked with another IT systems developer who built a cluster of five database and web servers. This cluster manages the Smith Electric telemetry application…a feat of software engineering which was written in Java and presented in PHP with a monster mysql backend. These were installed in the Smith head office in Kansas City, Missouri.

The moment it started working

Once all of the various components were written and tested individually we started a long and complicated task of connecting them together and testing them. It took a few days but we got there. It’s always a great feeling when something works for the first time but this was different. Not only had we worked for weeks on a really complicated and exciting project…it was the first time that StormMQ (our little startup) was being used in a production environment. The relief I felt was amazing….we had built a really complicated product, released it and now somebody was using it…..I will never forget the feeling of elation and relief….that night we had a few beers

Once we sobered up the system underwent months of rigorous testing. All of this work was being led by the Smith Electric Technical Team and as we were a small component of the system we weren’t involved in most of this testing. The testing process followed the normal (and rather rigorous) automotive testing process…the same way you would test any other component in a road vehicle. During these months I spent many hours sitting on the floor beside an electric vehicle with many laptops, soldering kits and miles of cable. Once this testing was completed we started the drive tests….we drive up and down every bloody road in the North East of England ;(

Endless Testing....

The whole project took around seven months for eight full time software and hardware developers. While our involvement in the development project only took a few weeks we loved every minute of it…it’s not often that you get to heavily customise your product and put it into production on custom hardware in hundreds of electric vehicles…..we couldn’t have wished for a better first customer!

Remember the Milk...

2010-08-24T15:31:00+00:00

A great bit of to-do list software with an even better name. We discovered Remember the Milk a while ago but have only just gotten around to trying it out properly.

moooooooooooooooooooooooooo moooooooooooo MUH

The idea of Remember the Milk (or RTM for short) is to allow users to plan out their day one snippet of information at a time. Tasks can then be categorised in terms of priority or deadline.

It’s essentially the online equivalent of a post-it note - only better and more portable! Oh I’m sure you could walk around with actual post-its stuck to you but then it would be goodbye business reputation, hello dole office.

Actually I imagine the challenges which 1DayLater faces will be similar to those Remember the Milk inevitably comes up against…ie.

How do I make it simple to log data?

How do I make it quick?

Their anwser….keyboard shortcuts….and lots of them! As keyboard ninjas we very much approve! This combined with their ultra simple interface makes actually entering data into RTM enjoyable.

With their 2million users it’s obvious that they’ve hit the nail on the head. In fact I think there could be some great future opportunities between RTM and 1DayLater - although that’s not part of our development pipeline in any way, shape or form right now!

I hope that 1DayLater users find this as useful a tool as I do!

Ruby Acceptance Testing

2010-08-24T13:03:01+00:00

In his recent article You’re Cuking It Wrong, Jonas Nicklas compares the following scenario which was submitted in a Cucumber issue :-

Scenario: Adding a subpage
  Given I am logged in
  Given a microsite with a Home page
  When I click the Add Subpage button
  And I fill in "Gallery" for "Title" within "#document_form_container"
  And I press "Ok" within ".ui-dialog-buttonpane"
  Then I should see /Gallery/ within "#documents"

With an improved version which he has written :-

Scenario: Adding a subpage
  Given I am logged in
  Given a microsite with a home page
  When I press "Add subpage"
  And I fill in "Title" with "Gallery"
  And I press "Ok"
  Then I should see a document called "Gallery"

Levels of Abstraction

Jonas says :-

there’s one crucial difference: the first feature is code, the second isn’t

Although I see what Jonas is getting at, neither of them are actually Ruby code – both are written in Cucumber’s Gherkin DSL. The key difference is really the level of abstraction – the first version has a test that is less abstracted from the implementation than the second version. As Jonas correctly points out, the test in the second version is consequently more readable and is less coupled to the underlying implementation.

Readability

Jonas also says :-

The argument against cucumber that’s often presented is that as a programmer, plain text is unnecessary, because we can all read code.

However, it’s a mistake to think that making a test readable necessarily means that it has to be written in a natural language. We could equally well write something like this :-

scenario "adding a subpage" {
  given {
    i_am_logged_in
    a_microsite_with_a_home_page
  }
  when {
    i_press "Add subpage"
    i_fill_in "Title",:with=>"Gallery"
    i_press "Ok"
  }
  then {
    i_should_see_a_document_called "Gallery"
  }
}

While I would agree that my version isn’t as pretty as Jonas’ version, I’d suggest it’s almost as readable. The difference being this is all valid Ruby code. I once saw someone (Nat Pryce or Steve Freeman, I think) do a neat trick where they changed the syntax highlighting in an editor to make some characters invisible and as a result made the code more readable. We could probably do something similar to make braces, underscores, etc invisible, and end up with something as good as Jonas’ version :-

scenario "adding a subpage"
  given
    i am logged in
    a microsite with a home page

  when 
    i press "Add subpage"
    i fill in "Title"  with  "Gallery"
    i press "Ok"

  then 
    i should see a document called "Gallery"

Overhead

It seems obvious to me that Cucumber adds an overhead in writing tests. It requires me to use regular expressions to convert natural language into code. While I recognise that the overhead is often small, it does still exist and I’ve definitely spent time debugging this aspect of tests. Given that I think it’s possible to write nicely abstracted readable tests in Ruby, it’s not obvious to me that the overhead of using Cucumber is worthwhile.

I’m going to try and find the time to look at frameworks like Coulda and Steak which seem to be more in line with my favoured approach.

Update

I thought it might be useful to include a quote from and a link to James Shore’s article on The Problems of Acceptance Testing

My experience with Fit and other agile acceptance testing tools is that they cost more than they’re worth. There’s a lot of value in getting concrete examples from real customers and business experts; not so much value in using “natural language” tools like Fit and similar.

Dynamics CRM - Set default unit on product line

2010-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

When picking a product on a CRM entity like quote product or order product the user also has to pick a unit of measure for the product. Wouldn't it be useful if CRM filled in the unit of measure field for the user based on the default unit for the product? Of course it would, but it doesn't do this out of the box.

My solution for this involves using a generic handler to get the default unit for a specific product and some JavaScript to call the handler asynchronously.

The JavaScript that is placed in the onchange event of the productid field looks like this:

The generic handler code looks like this:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Services;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.Text;
using CRM.GenericHandlers.CRMService;
using System.Configuration;

namespace CRM.GenericHandlers
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for $codebehindclassname$
    /// </summary>
    [WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
    [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
    public class QuoteProductSetDefaultUnits : IHttpHandler
    {

        public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
        {
            string productid = context.Request.QueryString["id"];

            try
            {
                CrmAuthenticationToken token = new CrmAuthenticationToken();
                token.AuthenticationType = 0;
                //add an <appsetting> to web.config for your organisation name
                token.OrganizationName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["OrgName"].ToString();

                CrmService service = new CrmService();
                service.CrmAuthenticationTokenValue = token;
                service.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                //create the ColumnSet that indicates properties to be retrieved
                ColumnSet productCols = new ColumnSet();
                ColumnSet uomCols = new ColumnSet();

                //set the properties of the ColumnSet
                productCols.Attributes = new string[] { "productid", "defaultuomid" };
                uomCols.Attributes = new string[] { "uomid", "name" };

                //retrieve quote
                Guid ProductID = new Guid(productid);
                product product = (product)service.Retrieve("product", ProductID, productCols);

Guid uomID = product.defaultuomid.Value;
uom productUom = (uom)service.Retrieve("uom", uomID, uomCols);

string productUomName = productUom.name;

                string[] arrLookupItem = new string[3];
                arrLookupItem[0] = uomID.ToString();
                arrLookupItem[1] = "uom";
                arrLookupItem[2] = productUomName;

context.Response.Write("{"+uomID+"},uom,"+productUomName);

            }
            catch (SoapException ex)
            {
                context.Response.Write(ex.Message);
            }

}

        public bool IsReusable
        {
            get
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }
}

MySQL Tutorial: Replication

2010-08-22T20:22:26+00:00

MySQL’s Community Server is one of the most popular choices for anything from small-time web hosting all the way up to huge organisations. PHP developers use it because it ties in so nicely with the basic language, with extensions such as mysqli, PDO and third-party frameworks such as Doctrine that maximise it’s potential. I’ve been using MySQL for a number of years, and am fairly comfortable trusting it for pretty much any situation that arises.

MySQL works wonderfully as a stand-alone database server, but has the flexibility so that it can be deployed in a multi-database server environment. Commonly, this is with one database server as the “master”, which holds the original copy of the data, and one or more “slaves”, which the master is responsible for keeping upto date. The following diagram illustrates how a MySQL multi-server setup plays out:

As shown above, the master server is normally used for all of the client writes to the databases, and the client will normally read from the various slave servers. In this quick tutorial, I’ll describe how to set-up a MySQL environment with one master server that is already in use, and a brand new single slave server using one database called exampledb. This presumes you’ve already got MySQL installed and working on both machines, as normally that’s a simple task of installing a package in Linux, an installation package in Windows, or a disk image in Mac OS X.

MySQL’s reference manual also some pretty cool info on replication.

Master Configuration

So first off, you need to make some configuration changes to the MySQL server that will become your master. These changes will be made on the main MySQL configuration file, commonly, on Linux/Mac at /etc/my.cnf or /etc/mysql/my.cnf. Firstly, find the following two lines and comment them out by adding a leading # character:

#skip-networking
#bind-address            = 127.0.0.1

Then add the following lines at the bottom of the file to tell MySQL where to store the log files that will be used to keep the slaves up-to-date:

server-id=1
log-bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log
binlog-do-db=exampledb

Now you need to restart MySQL to make sure it recognises itself as a master, and to trigger the new configuration changes. Normally this is done with the following command, but this may vary depending on your system:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

Next, the slave will need to be able to authenticate with the master as a user to receive the updates it requires. This means you’ll need to login to MySQL using the client as follows:

mysql -u root -p

Make sure to type your root password when prompted. Then create a user with the privileges the slave server will need, and make sure you replace example_password with an actual password, as follows:

GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'replicate'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'example_password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

We’re finished with the master server for now, but don’t shut your client because we’ll need to come back to it later on to extract the data from the master to transport to the slave. We aren’t dumping the data now because it means locking the database into read-only mode until the slave is up-to-date. It’s best to finishing setting up the slave first.

Slave Configuration

OK, now you need to log into the server that holds the MySQL installation you want to set-up as a slave server. You need to tell the server it is a slave in mostly the same way the master knows it’s a master, so add the following lines to your MySQL configuration file, changing the IP address, username and password where required:

server-id=2
master-host=192.168.2.1
master-user=replicate
master-password=example_password
master-connect-retry=60
replicate-do-db=exampledb

Then restart the server in the same way you did for the master. That’s it! The slave is now set-up and ready to receive data from the master.

Data Synchronisation

There are a few ways to transfer the initial data from the master to the slave, but I always find the easiest way is to read lock the database and make a dump of the current tables, import it into the slave and start replicating from there. Before you start this, make sure you have a client for both MySQL servers open, ready to input commands, and a separate terminal window on each server too for entering commands not in the MySQL client.

On the master, we need to read lock the tables and get the info ready for replication. To do this, lock the tables using the following commands:

USE exampledb;
FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;
SHOW MASTER STATUS;

That will give you some information similar to the following:

+---------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| File          | Position | Binlog_do_db | Binlog_ignore_db |
+---------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| mysql-bin.002 | 754      | exampledb    |                  |
+---------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Make sure you take a note of the log file AND position, as you’re going to need this info to synchronise the slave! Next, use the terminal on the master to run the following command to create a dump of the current database:

mysqldump -u root -pexample_password --opt exampledb > exampledb.sql

And then run the following command in the MySQL client:

UNLOCK TABLES;

This will unlock the read lock from the tables meaning your master database will operate normally again. Now, you need to copy the SQL dump file over to the slave. I’ll leave it up to you how to accomplish this, there are far too many ways to list. Once copied, create the database on the slave’s MySQL client:

CREATE DATABASE exampledb;

And use the terminal to import the dumped master data like this, replacing the password and path as needed:

mysql -u root -pexample_password; exampledb < /path/to/exampledb.sql

Now, finally, go into the slave’s MySQL client again, and stop the slave from running to update the config:

SLAVE STOP;

Update the master configuration on the slave to the log file and position you noted above by running the following command in the client, replacing the password, IP, etc. as required:

CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='192.168.2.1', MASTER_USER='replicate', MASTER_PASSWORD='example_password', MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.002', MASTER_LOG_POS=754;

Now start the slave again:

SLAVE START;

And that’s it! Your slave should now be receiving data from the master, and will update whenever a change on the master is pushed to it automatically.

More Tips

A very quick tip, use the following command to check how the slave is doing in relation to the master, and to make sure there are no I/O or SQL errors that have propagated:

SHOW SLAVE STATUS\G

The \G forces the client to output the parameters line-by-line instead of in a tabular make-up, making it a lot easier to read.

If you want to add more slaves to the master, simply increment the server-id configuration you set-up, and dump the data from the master in the same format as shown above.

There are more configuration parameters you can give to the slave, such as replicate-do-table which will specify only the tables that are allowed to be replicated, instead of an entire database.

I hope you’ve found this tutorial helpful, and if, as ever, you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave them!

Improve your perception of productivity

2010-08-20T10:19:00+00:00

<div>How many of you have to-do lists that are massive? A never-ending ball-ache of textual monotony, staring you right in the face each morning as a constant reminder of how much shit you have to do over the next few days of your piss-boring life. Yea me too.</div> <p /> <div>However, mine is big for a reason. And I am still talking about my to-do list here,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finbarr_Saunders"> Mr Saunders</a>.<strong> I deliberately make larger tasks into smaller ones by dividing them up into subtasks, just so that I can click things off on a more regular basis.</strong></div> <p /> <div>Think about it - you have a task entitled "Build User Management Facility". That's great, but if it takes you 5 days to complete, that's Monday to Friday without ticking off anything on your to-do list at all. Completely demotivating, because you look at your list and see no progression.</div> <p /> <div>If you divide "Build User Management Facility" into relevant subtasks, you can click off each one individually and actually see some progression even if the actual task it not completed. Example subtasks might be: "Produce 'User Listing' screen", "Produce 'User Create' screen", "Produce an 'Edit User' screen", "Allow users to be deleted", "Secure the module from unauthorised peons". Each one of those might take a few hours to a day to complete but before you know it, you're seeing progression on your way to the goal of completing the main task.</div> <p /> <div>Try it - it's all in the mind. If you see yourself progressing, you're more likely to stay motivated.</div>

An introduction to Code Contracts in .NET 4.0

2010-08-19T10:49:00+00:00

.NET 4.0 sees the introduction of Code Contracts. Code Contracts allow the developer to specify rules and "assumptions on your code in the form of pre-conditions, post-conditions and object invariants" (in the words of DevLabs). What this means in real terms is that we are able to apply contractual rules to methods or properties where typically we would have applied other input sanitizing methods.

Take, for example, an SMS messaging application where we have a dispatching service class. This class is responsible for sending out messages and contains a single Send method. A pre-condition to this method may be that the message length can only be 140 characters (as is typically the case). Code Contracts allows us to design our object and specify this contract as a condition to the method.

There are three ways to utilise this feature.

Runtime Code Checking - Your code will be modified with the contracts at runtime and allows for runtime results.
Static Code Analysis - A static checker that can check broken conditions and violations.
Document Generation - Although I haven't used this facility, it is able to generate XML documentation.

I start by creating an interface for my message dispatcher that contains my single Send method.

   1:  using System.Diagnostics.Contracts;

2:

   3:  namespace CodeContractsFirstLook.Contracts

   4:  {

   5:      [ContractClass(typeof(MessageDispatcherServiceContract))]

   6:      public interface IMessageDispatcherService

   7:      {

   8:          bool Send(IMessage message);

   9:      }

  10:  }

As you can see this dispatcher service interface is attributed with the ConcreteClass attribute that is part of the System.Diagnostics.Contracts namespace. This tells the checker which contract class applies to the concrete class that implements this interface. Let's see what the contract class (MessageDispatcherServiceContract) looks like:

   1:  using System.Diagnostics.Contracts;

2:

   3:  namespace CodeContractsFirstLook.Contracts

   4:  {

   5:      [ContractClassFor(typeof(IMessageDispatcherService))]

   6:      public sealed class MessageDispatcherServiceContract : IMessageDispatcherService

   7:      {

   8:          bool IMessageDispatcherService.Send(IMessage message)

   9:          {

  10:              Contract.Requires(message.messageBody.Length < 140);

  11:              return default(bool);

  12:          }

  13:      }

  14:  }

Here the contract is specified on line 10. What we are saying here is that whenever a class implements the IMessageDispatcherService interface and the Send method is called we are going to evaluate the Requires method as a pre-condition to the method. In this case the condition is that the message body is less than 140 characters in length.

By default we must return something where the method siganture has a return type, otherwise our code won't compile. Here, I use the default keyword to return the default for the type bool.

Now let's take a look at the actual MessageDispatcherService that implements the IMessageDispatcherService interface and therefore will execute our interface contract:

   1:  using CodeContractsFirstLook.Contracts;

2:

   3:  namespace CodeContractsFirstLook

   4:  {

   5:      public class MessageDispatcherService : IMessageDispatcherService

   6:      {

   7:          public bool Send(IMessage message)

   8:          {

   9:              // It doesn't matter what we do here

  10:              // Our Contracts will be executed

11:

  12:              return true;

  13:          }

  14:      }

  15:  }

As our interface has a contract associated with it, whenever the method above is executed our contract code will execute to evaluate the message body length. We can test this code works with a simple console application.

   1:  using System;

   2:  using CodeContractsFirstLook.Messaging;

   3:  using CodeContractsFirstLook;

4:

   5:  namespace ConsoleApplication1

   6:  {

   7:      class Program

   8:      {

   9:          static void Main(string[] args)

  10:          {

  11:              var message = new SmsMessage();

  12:              var messageDispatcher = new MessageDispatcherService();

13:

  14:              message.messageBody = "This will certainly pass";

  15:              Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Was message dispatching successful? {0} ",

  16:                  messageDispatcher.Send(message)));

17:

  18:              message.messageBody = "A very long message that surely must be over one hundred and forty characters by now...surely! Let me copy and paste into word to do a character count....a yes....we're good!";

  19:              Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Was message dispatching successful? {0} ",

  20:                  messageDispatcher.Send(message)));

  21:          }

  22:      }

  23:  }

Conclusion

In this post I've covered a very simplified overview of Code Contracts and a basic introduction as to how you can use the .NET 4.0 System.Diagnostics.Contracts to specify pre-conditions on methods, specifically using interface contracts.

This is very much the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the subject of Code Contracts.

One of the biggest benefits is the ability to ensure loose coupling of contracts from class code through interface contracts and the "Design-By-Contract" pattern seems a much neater implementation than the normal input sanitization/exception throwing mechanism that we typically deal with day-to-day.

What you need to get started

To get started you will need to download the Code Contracts project from DevLabs. This will add a "Code Contracts" panel to your projects properties (right-click on your project in Visual Studio and go to Properties). In order to perform runtime checks you will need to select the "Perform Runtime Contract Checking" option (see below):

Want to know more?

http://www.developer.com/net/article.php/3836626/Understanding-and-Benefiting-from-Code-Contracts-in-NET-40.htm

http://www.cauldwell.net/patrick/blog/CodeContracts.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bclteam/archive/2008/11/11/introduction-to-code-contracts-melitta-andersen.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/dd491992.aspx

Download my solution code sample:

CodeContractsFirstLook.zip (66.36 kb)

Are Your Managers Managing

2010-08-19T11:03:44+00:00

Many managers fail to give proper attention to their core responsibility - achieving goals for their business by getting the best from the people they work with – because they're too busy working on tasks, duties and problems that really should be delegated to the people they manage.

Managers, up and down the business from Managing Director to Team Leader, usually have at least two jobs. The first, quite obviously is leading and managing their area of responsibility. The other involves performing tasks and duties that are part of the functioning of their department or business. For example: managing projects, selling, preparing quotations, defining specifications, dealing with minor problems, writing minutes, and bookkeeping. Andy Stanley encourages managers to “only do what only you can do” and delegate the rest. But far too often ineffective managers spend so much time doing things that other people can do that they don't spend enough time really making a difference.

Mistakenly they believe that only they should handle the more difficult and complex tasks and consequently burden their to-do list with things should really be delegated. Ineffective managers therefore lead teams that are far less productive than they could be because their manager is too busy with the wrong things to provide the necessary support and guidance.

So why do managers not do enough managing?
Short-termism
Many managers measure their contribution incorrectly and measure their usefulness by tracking the quantity work they get through each day - something that may have been valid before they became a manager. But an effective manager's contribution does not reap dividends overnight. Getting the best from your people and achieving important goals takes persistence, patience, and time. A manager who is drawn toward little things will find that this will be at the expense of the big things that ultimately make a long-term difference. So allow yourself time to make a big difference and measure your contribution against the big things.

I don't know how to be a manager
Only a minority of managers have received much management training as too often their business simply assumes that they will just figure it out for themselves. However, good management is not easy and there are very few people who have enough natural talent to figure out this complex discipline all on their own. If you give a person a choice of two tasks: one they feel comfortable with, and another where they don't really know how to do it, most people will gravitate toward the former; which explains why unskilled managers don't give top priority to their managerial duties.

So what should managers focus on?
The things that will improve the performance of their people, achieve important goals, and generally improve their business. Things like forward planning, quality one-to-one time with staff and colleagues, team meetings, listening to customers, gathering information about the market, setting clear expectations about direction and performance, driving through key improvements, helping people to enjoy their work, and making key policy-shaping decisions.

How can you change your focus?
Managers who don't do enough leading and managing because they're too busy with other stuff, inevitably realise that they're not keeping up with the workload and ask for help. Unfortunately the help they ask for usually isn't support in learning how to be a good manager, but the recruitment of junior managers who can help them with the managerial workload. Consequently a department that only needs one manager now has two or more, none of whom know how to do the job properly and spend most of their time doing something other than leading and managing. In fact an additional layer of management will probably just increase costs and slow down communication both up and down the organisation. So first of all find out how much leading and managing your existing managers do and if it’s not enough, don't recruit because it won't fix the problem.

Managers should always put their leadership and management responsibilities first and only once these have been properly attended should they go to work on the other more hands-on tasks and responsibilities. A manager who then finds that they now don't have enough time to complete these other duties should not compromise on being an effective manager, and instead do what good managers do and delegate the hands-on tasks they don't have time to do.

Twifficiency, OAuth and You

2010-08-18T10:10:56+00:00

Yesterday there was a little Twitter drama centred around a site created by a young web developer who goes by the name of @jamescun. He built a website that rates your efficiency on the social network Twitter. It’s one of those “Who’s the best at Twitter?” things that people want to be top of without [...]

Are Squeeky Windscreen Wipers Spoiling Your Ferrari?

2010-08-17T20:47:41+00:00

I saw a re-run of Top Gear recently in which Clarkson was dashing across Europe in a brand new, top of the range Ferrari (a 612 Scaglietti if you’re interested). As you might imagine Clarkson was waxing lyrically about the poise, power, style, and general brilliance of this Ferrari, and yet despite all of these amazing qualities he was not enjoying his time with this Ferrari at all. In fact it was driving him mad in his usual animated way. Why? Because of one small but significant and very irritating problem: squeaky windscreen wipers.

Clarkson's frustrating experience got me thinking about a business that I know and love which in most respects is in a class of its own. They are the Ferrari of their sector and are recognised as the leader by their competitors. Except that quite often when I use them I am left irritated and disappointed by a problem that their otherwise inferior competitors do not inflict upon their customers. Why, I wonder, do your competitors avoid this problem, and yet you who are superior to them in every other respect force me to suffer this irritation? Why don't you fix your “squeaky windscreen wipers”?

But of course this is not the only business to suffer from “squeaky windscreen wipers”: a persistent weakness that undermines the best they have to offer. One company I know provides its customers with product quality that is surpassed only by their ability to respond in the blink of an eye to their customers' requirements. However, the way that incoming calls are handling is shoddy and means that they, like Clarkson's Ferrari, spoil their customers' experience.

I've worked in companies in which a whole department was a “squeaky windscreen wiper”. You've heard of the Sales Prevention Officer, well these companies had an entire Sales Prevention Department wholly out of tune with what the business was trying to achieve. I've also come across specific individuals who stood like King Canute stubbornly in the path of common sense and what everyone else is trying to achieve.

On another level a well-intentioned, hardworking individual may also suffer from “squeaky windscreen wiper” syndrome. Whilst it is true that we only give our best performance when we play to our strengths, it is also true that many people have one significant weakness that is in the way of their strengths achieving their full potential. For instance, I know of one director who is massively talented but is much less effective than he should be because he is singularly task focussed. Just a little more people and team orientation would transform his contribution.

So where are your squeaky windscreen wipers and are they converting the brilliance of your Ferrari into something as irritating as a rattling Morris Marina? Is there a process that is spoiling your customer's experience? Is there a team that is out of tune with the rest of your business and your customers? Or is there a personal weakness that is taking the shine off the brilliant performance you are capable of?

Whatever this weakness may be it will be worth your while getting it fixed. If you had a Ferrari you certainly wouldn't put up with squeaky windscreen wipers would you?

How good is your domain name?

2010-08-17T11:02:22+00:00

Which one is right for you?

Your domain name contributes to your position in Google and it’s fair to say that a domain name can make or break a new online business. How do you get a good name?

Well we all know that search engines look to the keywords you’ve used to help index a site so that a visitor can search Google to find your website.

For some tips on how to make it work for you, just click here and read our latest article and check out the list of other useful business articles we have online on our News & Articles pages.

Happy URL’ing…….

Leadership is Trust

2010-08-14T11:17:33+00:00

Is the term “leadership skills” something akin to an oxymoron? The word skills as it is used in the context of leadership development suggests that one can go away on a course and whilst on that course become a better leader by learning and practicing some skills: a concept that is no more than a folly. Leaders are followed not because of their skills, but because of other factors that take far more nurturing and development than mere skills.

The capacity to lead emerges from far deeper inside a person and more than any other factor is based on the extent to which the leader is trusted. Trust in this context is not about whether you trust the person to not run off with your wallet, but something far more substantial: whether you trust the leader sufficiently to follow their direction and do what they say without much question. To follow the direction and instruction of another is to take a risk, for their direction and instruction may be flawed and result in undesirable consequences for the follower. Thus the willing follower - in the context of work - places their future prosperity in the hands of their leader. If their leader’s direction and instruction are right then the follower will prosper, and if the leader’s direction and instruction is wrong, then the follower backed the wrong horse.

So what are the factors underpinning trust? Primarily credibility and reliability.

Credibility is established over time and is the perceived capacity of the leader to succeed with their responsibilities and challenges they face. In simple terms a leader with credibility will be regarded by their followers as good enough for the job at hand. A leader lacking credibility will have uncommitted followers (another oxymoron) that doubt their ability to succeed. Credibility is developed when the leader repeatedly demonstrates their ability to make the right decisions, do the right things, and produce the right results. Credibility is a product of experience, skills, competence, and track record.

Although reliability is in part a product of the leader repeatedly demonstrating their capability, reliability is rather more subjective matter and has more to do with the leader’s character qualities, Qualities such as authenticity, integrity, resilience, kindness, willingness to trust, openness, and more besides.
Through repetitive demonstration of these attributes followers are able to come to know the heart and soul of their leader and know whether they have the quality to be relied upon. Leaders who mask their true self behind a set of manufactured leader-like behaviours that they learned about on a leadership skills course or read about in a leadership book only fool the already foolish. The majority of us see through this façade and experience at least an uneasy feeling that there is more (or less) to this person than they choose to project.

Therefore reliable leaders reveal their strengths and their limitations too; they admit when they’re wrong or when they don’t know the answer; they keep their promises and when they can’t they tell the truth; they keep a cool head when all about them are losing theirs; they are unselfish and willingly give their time and help in support of their followers; they see the strengths in others more quickly and more often than they focus on their limitations; and they allow people to get to know them beyond just their role at work.
In a nutshell, they are deeply trustworthy.

Homemade flavoured spirits

2010-08-12T15:48:08+00:00

It’s an amazing year for soft fruit this year in the UK. The dose of heat early on kicked started the raspberries, red currents, blackcurrents, white currents and even the cherries, and the damp patch we’re having has filled them out beutifully. Thus the problem of a glut. We’ve had so much soft fruit our freezer is now packed (it was 80% frozen berries anyway after last year) and so it was time to come up with something else to do with them. I’m not the biggest fan of jam (it’s ok, I like it, but I go through one or maybe two jars a year), thus… flavoured spirits!

I wanted to make a variety of flavours, and to leave them unsugared and dry. The sugar can be added at a latter stage as gomme if they’re too sharp or a liqeur is desired, but yuo rarely get dry full strength fruit flavouered spirits. Luckily we’ve got a load of blackcurrents, redcurrents and raspberries, so all I needed was spirits and glass.

I managed to pick up 2 litre Kilner jars for a super cheap £1.75 each at a sale in a local hardware shop (I should have bought an arm full thinking about it), and Aldi vodka is a very reasonable £7.99 a bottle (and far better than all the generic supermarket’s own brands). Actually their Cronwell Gin is the same price and very good too, but I wanted to use a neutral spirit to let the flavours of the fruit come through.

Put a bottle of vodka (70cl) into each Kilner jar, the aim is to fillt he jar full and I’m betting you’ve gotmore fruit than vodka. Pick over the fruit, remove any manky ones, give them a gentle rinse under the cold tap and then add to each jar. Seal the lids, and once a month give the jar a swirl to mix it up (don’t break the fruit with shaking or stirring). In six months time, strain and bottle, just in time for Christmas (ish).

Of and the names, well a Russian theme was too good to miss, so I present Raspberry Rasputin, Revolutionary Redcurrent and Russian Ribena.

Raspberry, redcurrent and blackcurrent

Possibly Related Posts:

A little advice about cars if you live in Teesside

2010-08-12T07:55:26+00:00

I know I have not posted for a while, I will blog again soon with a few more exciting things but I feel as if I need to pass a little advice on to anyone looking or thinking of getting a car from Acklam Car Centre. My advice, don’t.

Early run - and can you help?

2010-08-11T05:41:00+00:00

<p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-10/mGEwJGuqhanExhuiwlywzcDkhuigImJIIGiDjfoDdpdlIboexIGzqyJevdzF/sportypal.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-10/mGEwJGuqhanExhuiwlywzcDkhuigImJIIGiDjfoDdpdlIboexIGzqyJevdzF/sportypal.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="348"/></a> Check me out - running at 5:30am without any kip! ~2.2 miles in a touch under half an hour isn't bad for me - managed to shave almost 2 mins off my "mile time" too... I'll have that, no bother.</p> <p>I've got a problem though - the breathing is coming along nicely, I don't get as breathless now which is a definite plus - but my back is fucking killing! Right at the bottom, just above my arse. I'm guessing this is just due to muscle weakness but it's causing me a bit of bother and I keep having to stop (as you can see on the lower 'heartbeat style' graph which measures my speed on the image above. Any suggestions?</p> <p>Plus I have sore chins but that's because I'm a big fat man bouncing up and down on skinny legs - hopefully it'll settle.</p> <p>I'd really appreciate some pointers on the back issue though - is it just a case of keeping at it? Should I do less distance for a while?</p> <p>Cheers</p>

Response to Sexism in Web Design

2010-08-10T18:34:00+00:00

<div>This is my response to "<a href="http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/08/10/interviewing-women-in-web-design-around-the-world-huge-list/comment-page-1/#comment-7701">Sexism in Web Design</a>" - please read it. The exact same questions, answered by yours truly - a fifteen-stone skinhead geordie male.</div> <p /> <div>Let's see:</div> <p /> <div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; color: #272727; line-height: 20px;"> </span> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">How Did You Get Into the Web Design Industry?</strong><br /> Okay - What does this have to do with sexism in the web design industry? Gah - I did good work, shoved it in a portfolio and applied for a job. They liked it, I got in.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Do You Think There is a Lack of Female Web Designers?</strong><br /> At every single web agency I've worked for there have been females on the creative team, whether they be designers, developers or both. I have yet to see a completely male agency. Moreover, none of these females even when the ratio has favoured men, have ever complained about feeling, or been seen as, a less valued member of staff. Important sidenote - there is probably a lack of honestly GOOD web designers, but I really don't think it's anything to do with their sex.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Have You Ever Experienced Any Negativity or Sexism Being in This Industry?</strong><br /> Negativity? If you mean "did people not want to work with the team because there are women on board" then .. No. Quite the opposite actually. I think (and this only my opinion, woah there!) women bring a sense of personableness (it's a word dammit) to a team. As for sexism, I'd have to say yes. But only if you consider male banter inherently sexist in which case I suggest you loosen up and accept the fact that banter doesn't automatically mean sexist and, if it gets to that point, it's now sexual harrassment. As it happens none of the females I've ever worked with were made to feel uncomfortable (and in most cases were pretty capable of making a bloke go red in the face) - in short, if you're personable, male or female, you'll get on in the web industry. If you're not, don't blame it on a sexist issue that isn't there.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Do You Think Female Designers Have Advantages Over Their Male Counterparts?</strong><br /> No, I think that some projects suit some minds better than others. Whether that mind be accompanied by titties or bollocks is neither here nor there.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">If You Were Not a Designer, What Would You Be?</strong><br /> As a male, I'd have to say sewing machine operator. Because in this world of equal opportunities I'd feel it my duty to do whatever makes me happy regardless of my perception of the lack of equality in life. And I really like clothes.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">What is Your Biggest Challenge/Achievement?</strong><br /> Again, this isn't really a sexual equality question is it. It's actually two questions, so I'm not going to answer. *Miss Piggy Hmph*</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Anything to Say to Other Female Designers?</strong><br /> Just because you're female doesn't mean that a) you're going to be shit on, b) you have a right to a free ride. Work your arse off, come up with kick-ass work and get on with people - otherwise you're in the wrong job anyway and no amount of hand waving about sexism is going to change the fact that you have much more real, personal issues. And are maybe just not as good as you think.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.7em; padding: 0px;">Now, if you'll excuse me I have some puppies to brush.</p> </div>

Geek Steam BBQ 2010

2010-08-10T17:39:14+00:00

Following the success of the Geek Steam BBQ last year we have decided to have another one this year on the same bank holiday weekend. This is a very informal social event where we have a BBQ and have the opportunity to ride scale model steam trains. It is free to attend. You can bring your own food and we will supply the charcoal. More details are available on the Geek Steam BBQ web site. If you can you should come along.

You have mail!

2010-08-10T14:02:00+00:00

When 1DayLater was born it’s userbase was like a rabble of happy monkeys…all swinging within hooting distance of each other. That monkey can’t open a banana…no problem…just pass it here matey we’ll get that open for you.

Now our happy monkey clan has grown to almost 10,000! Some monkeys can’t get their bananas open, some have theirs upside down. Too many monkeys to teach, too little time! (sad hoot)

Cue the 1DayLater message system - hooray!

Now with this handy little tool we can update our clan with regular hints and tips, news and future promotions. Less admin for us and more happy users…double win!

What’s more, this message system can easily be added to any piece of software which we create so you can expect to see this popping up on our next project too (still under wraps for now)

And as ever we are always keen to hear from you guys. If there is anything else you feel would add to this new feature (eg. notifications of new blog posts, recommendations for other complementary software etc) please let us know.

—-Message end—-

Run, Fatboy! Run!

2010-08-09T22:13:00+00:00

<p>Today marks my official promise to myself to run at least five miles a <br />week to get a bit more in shape. <p /> i know its not a lot but if i set a huge amount, i'll fail for sure so, <br />i'm more inclined to be realistic. And that means no excuses. <p /> Wish me luck! (and follow me on DailyMile or SportyPal!)</p> <p>edit: formatting fixed - damn phone, so much for mobile blogging...</p>

Some pro-bono work for a worthy cause

2010-08-07T17:27:00+00:00

<p>Last night I took some time out from work to create a simple new website for my wife, to celebrate the lives of some people who have died from cervical cancer.</p> <p>My wife is part of the Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust community, which aims to bring awareness to cervical cancer and the fact that it kills many young women long before their time.</p> <p>During her time in the community she has become friends with a number of women who have, sadly, passed on. She wanted to create a shrine to their memory instead of their stories being lost in a deluge of new forum threads. It's her way of paying tribute to these women and highlighting what they and their families went through.</p> <p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-07/yzFgAiftyfdtFeGlHBurBlipAkIHJkhmmIJzGCocIfyqkykoauyiCzpyfifm/josgirls.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-07/yzFgAiftyfdtFeGlHBurBlipAkIHJkhmmIJzGCocIfyqkykoauyiCzpyfifm/josgirls.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="481"/></a> </p> <p>The site uses Posterous to manage the content if you're interested :)</p> <p>Check it out <a href="http://www.josgirlsmemorial.co.uk">http://www.josgirlsmemorial.co.uk</a> and don't forget to <a href="http://www.jostrust.org.uk/donate" title="donate">donate</a> to Jo's Trust.</p>

Chill out, Folks

2010-08-07T17:22:00+00:00

<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened." </span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Winston Churchill</span></p>

Busy as a Bee - Current Projects

2010-08-06T15:37:00+00:00

<p>As a freelance developer and designer, it's always good when I have plenty of work. Me and my family get to eat which is always a bonus :)</p> <p>Currently I'm working on the following exciting projects for various clients and agencies, deliberately vague so as not to breach any confidentiality!</p> <ul> <li>A new fully-content managed website for a country park.</li> <li>A brand new e-commerce and content managed website for a supplier of hand-crafted goods.</li> <li>A new community website for motoring fans</li> <li>A fully content managed event planning and management website</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, I have a number of personal projects I'm working towards completing as part of my personal "get off my ass and put my skills to good use" project</p> <ul> <li>VatSimSigs improvements. Since I launched this site, I've had some really positive feedback from the community and have a number of improvements and additions I want to put forward.</li> <li>Working on the blog, and the <a href="http://www.swoodigitalmedia.co.uk" title="business">business</a> <a href="http://www.lanilogic.com" title="websites">websites</a> to make them work harder for me</li> <li>I really want to resurrect Twizzle, my simple Twitter client but I'm waiting to see what effect the discontinuation of Basic Authentication by Twitter has on their API before I do it - this will also be my first real application to be built for Windows Phone 7 and I can't wait to get cracking on it.</li> </ul> <p>So, all is going well - this has been an excellent year for me in terms of new business - long may it continue (so that I can buy Walkers crisps instead of Tesco's). If you'd like to work with me, fire me an e-mail and we'll meet up for a pint.</p> <p>Peace!</p> <p> </p>

Selling at a Higher Level blended sales training programme, 6 minute interview

2010-08-05T21:18:00+00:00

Sunderland Software City kindly filmed a 6 minute video at the end of our 5th Selling at a Higher Level workshop a few of weeks back. The workshops took place at St James’ Park in Newcastle. The quality of the video is a little bit ‘Blair Witch Project’ but hopefully you get the idea.

Thanks to Andrew, Abbi and Laura for agreeing to answer questions off the cuff whilst on a short break and during what was clearly a blustery North-East day!

Due to the success of this first programme we have agreed to run a condensed follow-on course starting at the end of September. For more details see here. Places will be limited and are expected to fill quickly so let me know if you would like to reserve a place.*

—–

* Open to software, digital and technology companies based in the North-East of England. Maximum two delegates per company

People these days are ignorant bastards

2010-08-05T17:47:00+00:00

<div>Today I did a good deed.</div> <p /> <div>I was driving along to the shopping centre and turned into the road down to the shops, where I was confronted by a car in the centre lane coming the opposite way to me which had stopped and had it's hazards on.</div> <p /> <div>Inside was an oldish woman, about fifty-five years old I'd wager, on the phone to whoever - it was obvious from the position of the car (and the hazard lights) that she'd broken down, so I pulled up at the side of the road, left my wife and kids in our car, and went to speak to her (in the middle of the road).</div> <p /> <div>Turns out, she'd been there for ten minutes, stuck, unable to move the car and didn't have a clue what was wrong with it. "smoke came from the engine" she said. Regardless, the car had to move as it was becoming a problem to the other lanes of traffic which were having to drive around her.</div> <p /> <div>I asked her if she needed a hand and she accepted gladly. So, I started to push her car out of the way. And some bastard drove around the car on the inside lane, where I was trying to push the car! If you're reading this, You Sir, are a cock of the highest order.</div> <p /> <div>It took me five more minutes of waiting, gesticulating for traffic to stop (and bear in mind this was a 30mph road, not exactly a motorway) and eventually someone stopped [daydreaming] so that I could push the car out of the way. At this point, a police car helpfully arrived and blocked the traffic anyway but by then I'd moved the car and she went to sit inside to wait for the breakdown truck, thanking me profusely.</div> <p /> <div>Now, maybe I'm just old fashioned, but in my day (aagh!) if you saw someone stranded (especially a woman, no offense), you stopped to help because it was the decent thing to do. Not for reward or recompense or anything like that, just as a favour. There was no way this woman could move the car herself and probably felt pretty vulnerable for the ten minutes before I arrived. I was, frankly, disgusted that no-one else had bothered to stop.</div> <p /> <div>People, how long does it take to help someone out? Wouldn't the world be a better place if we just slowed the fuck down, forgot about our hectic schedules (mostly brought on ourselves by lack of organisation) and just learned how to be decent human beings again? Seriously - if you see someone who needs a little bit of help, do the right thing - assist.</div> <p /> <div>What's that phrase again? <span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><em style="font-style: normal;"><strong>do unto others</strong></em><strong> as you would have them do unto you</strong></span></div> <p /> <p> </p>

Infosanity

2010-08-04T11:42:18+00:00

This week I was interviewed for the Disaster Protocol Security Podcast. My theory is that everyone else was superstitious and didn’t want to risk being on number 13, so they got stuck with me…..

Basically, the interview is just me talking about honeypots and some of the results and findings that have been discussed discussed both on this blog and via Twitter. Hopefully you’ll find it an interesting listen, and hopefully you’ll be able to understand me. Seems a few people have struggled so I’ll need to work on my ‘BBC English’ next time around….

Always interested in hearing others thoughts or comments on honeypots or infosec in general; so if you liked, disliked or disagreed with any of the content let me know.

The podcast episode can be downloaded here.

–Andrew Waite

XmlHttpRequest Cache Busters

2010-08-04T08:42:00+00:00

The call to a generic handler in the post Using generic handlers in Dynamics CRM seemed to only be firing once. The alert was being displayed to say that the code had run successfully but I could see that after the first call it wasn't copying the entity as it should have.

It turns out this was because the xmlhttprequest was being cached and the fix was fairly simple. By adding an extra parameter to the url called by the request we can trick it into thinking that a completely new call is being made which prevents the cached result from being used.

Simply add the following to the query string: "bustCache=" + Math.random();

SportyPal - Getting me off my big fat arse

2010-08-03T21:07:00+00:00

<p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-03/xjxiuGGtwEuhqdivabmzpwwezjwlswIGFttsCBEIfIfAoAdmlempitudEFfB/sportypal.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-03/xjxiuGGtwEuhqdivabmzpwwezjwlswIGFttsCBEIfIfAoAdmlempitudEFfB/sportypal.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="317"/></a> I'm not affiliated with this product, but I am fifteen stone. Fifteen. Fucking. Stone.</p> <p>For those of you who know me, you'll remember me as the kid who was tiny. They even called me Littlewoods at school for christs sake, the fucking wags that they were! Hilarious! Even when I was twenty-three, I was still only nine and a half stone - now I weigh as much as a small car! what's going on?!</p> <p>I blame getting married tbh - I eat more, and better. I'm content. They say that's what happens. But dammit I'm not ready for middle-aged spread just yet, so I need to do something about it!</p> <p>Now granted, a lot of it is muscle (if I do say so myself :D). I've put on quite a bit of the good stuff since I started kickboxing and I feel pretty fit. But since I moved down south from the Toon, I've not been keeping up any kind of training ritual at all. Except for trips to the fridge. And if I'm honest, I feel the worse for it.</p> <p>So, enter SportyPal. I've been using <a href="http://www.dailymile.com" title="www.dailymile.com">www.dailymile.com</a> for a while to track my workouts, although admittedly they have been few and far between. It's good, but it's not enough. The reason for this is two-fold. One, I'm lazy. And two, I'm even lazier when it comes to typing all the information in about a run/walk/bike ride. I just cannot be bothered, it's the 10's for christ's sake and I'm a twenty-first century kinda bloke. Automation ftw!</p> <p>SportyPal is different. It does it all for you, because I have a smartphone with a built in GPS. It can track my routes, tell me how long it took, how high I climbed, how fast I travelled - it's awesome. Not least because all I need to do to keep tabs on myself is to click "upload". All my workout data is sent over the interpipes and presented to me on Google Maps with more stats than I can dribble at.</p> <p>There's no better motivation than seeing yourself rack up the miles - trust me, it's a good feeling when you see how much exercise you have done instead of being a lazy git. Plus, you can gloat by sharing it on Twitter/Facebook with the click of a button. "Hah, have that, you fat gits!", is my usual warble after a particularly energetic sesh!</p> <p>Best of all - it's free! More money for mars bars, er... weightwatchers flapjacks! Hooray!</p> <p><a href="http://www.sportypal.com" title="www.sportypal.com">http://www.sportypal.com</a> - add me, I'm woodss.</p>

DropBox Security

2010-08-03T12:29:06+00:00

For those of you new to Dropbox: “Dropbox is a Web-based file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. which uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_%28service%29 Dropbox has become very popular and widely used as it has so many different uses and [...]

What do we have to do to raise the image of Sales?

2010-08-02T20:40:04+00:00

This headline caught my eye in yesterday’s Observer newspaper – unfortunately for the wrong reasons.

Whilst written about something completely different (the article is focused on the UK Prime Minister’s recent approach to Foreign Policy – an interesting topic in itself), what you will see immediately is how being a sales person is used in a sharply negative light.

When will the image of sales people become more positive?

I hate the term ‘salesman’s patter‘. It carries heavy negative connotations and sits alongside phrases such as ‘gift of the gab‘, ‘(he) could sell sand to the Arabs‘, ‘(he’d) sell his grandmother if he had to‘. Blah, blah, blah.

When will the image of sales people become more positive?

I think the answer to that question lies with us sales professionals. We have to focus on adding value to our customers, being professional at all times and acting with integrity and honesty. I have a mantra that I teach whenever I work with sales people – ‘professional, humble, courteous‘. To me this is rule #1.

If you carry these three words with you at all times, perhaps people like Nick Cohen will eventually think of other analogies to use when writing about politics.

Knowledgeblogging

2010-08-02T19:27:15+00:00

This week we had some welcome news (by we I mean Simon Cockell, Phil Lord and others). A proposal we had submitted to JISC has been funded. This is the first research funding I have received after significant input in the bid process, as opposed to being included as a co-I for specific bioinformatics expertise. As such it’s a bit of a departure for me, but something I’m very much looking forward to spending time on over the next year.

The elevator pitch goes something like this:

“The project extends existing blogging tools for use as a lightweight, semantically linked publication environment. This enables researchers to create a hub in the linked-data environment, that we call knowledge or k-blogs. K-blogs are convenient and straight-forward for authors to use, integrating into researchers existing work practices and tools. The provide readers with distributed feedback and commenting mechanisms. We will support three communities (microarray, public health and workflow), providing immediate benefit, in addition to the long term benefit of the platform as a whole. Additionally, this will enable a user-centric development approach, while showcasing the platform as the basis for next generation research publishing.”

If this sounds like the kind of thing you’re interested in, Phil has made the full grant application that we submitted available online, on knowledgeblog.org. We would of course be interested in any comments or feedback. The proposal includes some technical details of what we hope to achieve, but I think that Ontogenesis has already gone some way to proving the worth of the system. It’s going to be great to provide additional tooling to support the process, and cement some of the inherent social contract with a proper workflow for publishing and review.

The project starts almost immediately, and knowledgeblog.org will be the place to stay tuned for updates.

Cold Water Swimming Trailing : One

2010-08-02T18:31:41+00:00

This afternoon I started my training for Septembers charity swim. Whilst working up in Scotland on a job I’m taking a few hours every afternoon to walk, kyak or swim. Today we kyaked round form the beach round an island (dropping off prawn traps on the way) and then half a mile out to sea I slipped over the side (gracefully, honest) and swam to shore.

Things I discovered:

Swimming with a tshirt on is like being sandpapered whilst doused in salt water – just go bare.
Wearing swim booties that are slightly too big is like swimming in wellies.
You will swallow sea water, so just admit it and get good at breathing
Even the slightest current makes things much harder (I probably actually swam closer to three quarters of a mile)
Standing up when you hit land is hard

The funniest bit was when some tourist in a little motor boat came out to me (swimming beside a man in a canoe, towing my canoe) and asked if I was ok. I was dyeing to say ” No – this bugger nicked my canoe and is now waiting for me to drown so he can have my pants!”

Actually, lesson 7: Don’t laugh at sea, inhaling sea water is horrific.

If you can spare a few quid, pop over and sponsor me, because I’ve got to get up at 6am tomorrow and do it all over again. Here’s a picture of a red squirrel I took out of the office window which justifies getting up at this time.

Possibly Related Posts:

The Twitter Effect

2010-08-02T12:02:28+00:00

Earlier today I ran out of milk. It happens all too frequently. It’s not very exciting. But that doesn’t stop me tweeting about it. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will be acutely aware of the fact I tweet some incredibly inane rubbish. Today though, someone was actually reading me tweets. Cravendale Milk, or more likely [...]

HTML5 Poker cheat sheet: a web app

2010-08-02T01:32:31+00:00

I started playing Poker again.
I built an HTML5 cheat sheet and web app to help you sort out chips before a game.
I wrote an unfeasibly long blog post about points one and two.

Version Control with Mercurial

2010-08-01T11:22:44+00:00

Three years ago, if someone had asked me what version control was, I would’ve genuinely had no idea, and I’m quite ashamed of that. To be quite honest, I would never wish that feeling of simple stupidity on anyone, and so this post will be a quick introduction to the idea behind version control, and how to get to grips with one of the latest SCM (software configuration management) tools, Mercurial, which is my preferred choice at the moment. There are some more traditional SCM tools, such as CVS and Subversion, which still work well in the majority of circumstances, but Mercurial is designed to be a distributed tool, where the source code in its repositories can be worked on from multiple locations at any time, and the merging to the central server handled at a later date.

Mercurial Basics

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the Mercurial binary. As far as I’m aware, it isn’t included on any major system distributions, certainly not on Windows or Mac in any case, although it may be packaged up with some Linux offerings. So, your first stop is Mercurial’s website, which will guide you through the simple installation process. You may also need to install Python if you don’t already have the language set-up on your system.

Create a Repository

Once Mercurial is installed, you’ll have access to the hg command-line tool. This is Mercurial’s core, and where you’ll handle all of your version control needs. To create a new repository for a new project, first you need to create a new directory (normally mkdir on most systems), then cd into that directory and run the following command:

hg init

This tells Mercurial to set up the directory as a repository, creating all the hidden files it needs to store the history of the repo and keep track of all the changes. Now create some files that you might want to store in the repo such as some source code, and add them to the repository using this command:

hg add (files)

Finally, you need to commit the changes you’ve made to the repository, so run this command

hg commit -m 'My first commit'

Congratulations! Your repository is now at revision 1!

Managing the Repository

This is exactly how version control works. You make some changes to the files in the repository, add some new files and possibly remove some old ones, and then commit the changes with a helpful message to remember what you did at a later date. There are just a couple more commands that will help to get you started with your own repository. To remove a file from the repository, use this command:

hg remove (files)

And, to quickly commit all changes, adding and removing any files automatically without using the hg add and hg remove commands, use the following syntax:

hg commit -Am 'Message'

Cloning

Of course, one of Mercurial’s more powerful abilities is to clone other repositories, allowing the user to make changes locally before pushing the changes back to the central server. To clone an existing repository, use the following command:

hg clone (central-repository) (destination)

Then you can work on the repository as normal. When you’ve committed some changes and are ready to synchronise with the central server, use the following command:

hg push

This pushes all outstanding changes to the server, ensuring it is kept up to date. However, the server could be more up-to-date than your local repository, which would mean you’d need to pull the changes and then update your local repository to the current revision, just like this:

hg pull
hg update

And that’s the basics of using Mercurial’s cloned repository feature. As ever, I’m only showing you the very basics here. There are a lot of different circumstances you might want to foresee, such as merging changes between repositories, updating or rolling back to a previous revision, tagging and branching, and more. To read up on these features and how they are jused in the Mercurial tool, the best place is always Mercurial’s website.

Another problem that might arise is how to serve your repositories across the internet. Cloning from a local source works fine, but defeats the purpose of working in a decentralised environment, to clone effectively, you need to be able to do it across the internet. Normally this is done in one of two ways: using SSH as a wrapper for the Mercurial command, or using HTTP to serve the repositories. There are a lot of details to go into with both of these methods, and the best way to do this is search on Google, as I don’t want to baffle everyone with the details in this simple post. If you’re not so inclined as to search on Google, here is an example of how to setup Mercurial to serve using Apache.

Helpful Clients

Personally, I hate using the command-line unless I absolutely have to, so if you’re like me, you’ll probably want to know if there are any decent clients for Windows, Mac and Linux out there, and luckily, there are!

Windows – TortoiseHg
Based on the brilliant TortoiseSVN, which integrates nicely with Windows Explorer meaning no nasty gigantic client windows cluttering everything up, TortoiseHg can handle everything from committing and updating, to merging, diff’ing and more! When I was back using Windows, this was my tool of choice, and did the job very nicely!

Mac – MacHg
This has only been a recent discovery myself, but MacHg is simply fantastic for managing tons of repos in a GUI environment! The history graphs, simple directory window and helpful icons mean it is really easy to use and live with. It does have a couple of things I would change, such as TextMate integration, but I might have a go at writing a couple of scripts myself to sort out things like that!

Linux
I’ll be honest, I don’t use Linux with a desktop very often at all, so I’m not completely aware of any simple GUI-native interface for Mercurial on this platform. Have a look at Mercurial’s own list of tools and see whether there is something there that jumps out!

Bitbucket

Just one final piece of information. Bitbucket is a fantastic repository centre that will manage projects using Mercurial for you. It only gives you one free private repository currently, but an unlimited number of public ones, so it can be extremely handy for tracking a project and making it available online for others to use. I highly recommend giving this website a look for starting up your Mercurial lifestyle through, as it really does make things a lot easier with wikis, issue tracking, user management and more!

5 (and a bit) Interesting Ideas

2010-08-01T09:09:55+00:00

There are millions of completely crazy ideas around the internet. Sites that you see and think “Really? REALLY?”. I’m not going to name names but I see them almost every day. Frequently they fade away without a trace, occasionally they grow to be incredibly successful, and I’m usually left scratching my head thinking “What did [...]

What the user sees first.

2010-07-29T13:30:35+00:00

Imagine the scenario. Someone out there is using Google. They’re looking for a company. They want to buy what you sell. Have you optimised your website for the key words they’re looking for? For the sake of argument, let’s assume you have. So your business is in the first few results. That’s brilliant. Except for [...]

Steve Job's a good un'

2010-07-29T12:55:00+00:00

Last week we launched the first of 1DayLater’s phone applications, this one for the i-phone.

Die hard 1DayLater users will know that this has been a long time coming; mostly because the ‘bigger boys’ at the iphone store have kept returning our latest builds for picky reasons. But we’ve now squirmed our way in - hoorah!

The first of many phone apps which we will be releasing

To build the app we enlisted the help of a local web development and design house; Twisted Studio, earlier this year.

We asked Twisted to create us something which was purely for input purposes, no fancy graphs or analysis. Just a simple way of logging your activities on the go, whether that’s time spent with a client or mileage travelled.

The data then gets whisked away to each user’s 1DayLater account where the magic happens.

The app can be found here on the apple store. What’s more the app is free and we would like to keep it that way to benefit all of our users. However if you do want to pay us back then a kind review on the app store about the 1DayLater service would be hugely appreciated.

Further apps will soon be available for Google Android, Nokia N-Series and Blackberry phones.

BACK down to street level

2010-07-29T11:14:22+00:00

Please be brave and sign up to help our very good friends at St Oswald’s Hospice in Gosforth by participating or helping out with this fabulous opportunity to see Newcastle upon Tyne in a whole new way.

St Oswald’s provides hospice care for adults, young people and children. Situated in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, St Oswald’s purpose-built facilities offer a range of flexible services to North East families.

St Oswald’s follows a holistic approach that aims to address not just physical symptoms, but also spiritual and emotional needs too.

Families from across the region – Northumberland and Tyne & Wear – can benefit from their services.

St Oswald’s are a registered charity and their annual running costs amount to £8 million – of which £6 million must be raised through voluntary giving.

They make no charge for any of their services, ensuring hospice care is available to everyone.

Give Jayne a shout and get signed up to help this amazing cause.

Slow baked ham with cider and spice

2010-07-29T08:21:52+00:00

I’ve no pictures for this, because I was doing it as part of a dinner party, so you’ll have to just imagine. I should just the nod to Beer Reviews for pointing me in the direction of cider gammon.

Take a 1kg ham, or gammon joint. I used an unsmoked one, wanting to bring the spice flavour through, but a smoked one might be really good.

Pop it in a big pan, and run the cold tap on it for a good couple of minutes to remove remove the salt.

I stood mine end on in the slow cooker (a 3 litre job) and added 2 bottles of “rustic” cider (Old Rosie would be good, this was a Lidl bargin job in a glass bottle), totally 1.5 litres. Add a large clove of garlic, peeled and thumped to break it up a touch. I used a fat clove of smoked garlic because that’s what I had in after the Jerk Chicken experiment.

I ground a heaped teaspoon of black pepper corns and one “arm” of a star anise up in the pestle until all cracked through. I was tempted to add more star anise, but the liquouricy flavour was enough. Stick that all in the slow cooker too.

The liquid nearly covered the ham, but instead of adding extra liquid, I turned the ham ever couple of hours. I cooked on High for 3 hours, and low for 4 hours, then turned off and the meat left to cook in the liquor.

You could slice it finely once cold (lift it out of the cooking liquor once cold), but I flashed it in a hot oven without a lid for 20 minutes to warm the meat through and crisp the outside fat. You don’t want to crisp it too much, the velvet soft liquid-laden fat is one of the great delight. If you’re hot slicing it cold, cut with the grain to break of big chunks, and pretend to be a medieval king!

Possibly Related Posts:

New Project Launch - VatSimSigs!

2010-07-28T23:52:00+00:00

<p><a href="http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk"><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-07-28/ganHgodgCeevxnagnwsGhcFJretotjnvbzJmioilCmtnlxhcltDDoFGqeyxf/vatsimsigs.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="269"/> </a></p> <p>I'm an avid Flight Simulation fan, have been for years much to the mirth and merriment of the people I know. I enjoy nothing more (well, within reason) than filing a flight plan from one place to another and sitting online while I'm guided via live air traffic control - pretty much as real as it gets without setting foot into an actual plane.</p> <div>The live air traffic control is from <a href="http://www.vatsim.net">VATSIM</a>, or more specifically the people connected to the VATSIM servers who have nothing but a simulated radar screen on their PC's with which to talk to and guide us armchair pilots from one place to the next, over the internet.</div> <div> </div> <div>It's a lot of fun and it's the nearest I'll get to realising my childhood dream of being a pilot, because I have the worlds shittest right eye. I can see everything with it, only it's like looking through slightly frosted glass. So, Mr Woods isn't allowed to fly the Big Iron (though I *will* get my PPL one day).</div> <div> </div> <div>I've been a member of the FlightSim community since about 1993 or 1994, (back in the dark days of FS4.0b with the aircraft and scenery design addon!) and during the years I've learned a LOT about piloting, navigation, radio communications, etiquette and aircraft stats. All of which appeal to me.</div> <div> </div> <div>So it's my turn to give something back, no matter how trivial. Enter <a href="http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk">VatSimSigs</a>.</div> <div> </div> <div> <a href="http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk">VatSimSigs </a>is, as the about page will tell you, simply a web application that allows you to display a signature on forums, reflecting your connection status to VATSIM - that is, online or offline. This is especially handy for those who browse the forums and are interested in seeing whether or not their buddies are online.</div> <div> </div> <div>In addition, it also allows you to upload "sets" of images, which I have cunningly entitled "image sets" (genius!). These sets of images are a two-part group of signature images, one for online and one for offline statuses - but because the system generates HTML or UBB code links, you can have multiple different signatures running through your singular VatSimSigs account. </div> <div> </div> <div>What this means is that if you're a member of a virtual airline (and I am, I'm a First Officer rank on <a href="http://www.thomsonvirtual.com">www.thomsonvirtual.com</a> , defected from KnightAir ), you can have one signature for that forum and another for additional forums, such as BAVirtual or EasyJetVirtual or whatever other forum you frequent. All from one place, no administration necessary - VatSimSigs will do the processing and make sure the correct status image is served no matter which image is requested.</div> <div> </div> <div> <a href="http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk">VatSimSigs </a>is also free of charge - so enjoy, tell your friends and have three greens!</div> <div> </div> <div>For those who are interested, It's built in <a href="http://ASP.NET">ASP.NET</a> MVC 2.0, and took about 19 hours to complete from start to finish including design / development / deployment - not bad going :)</div> <div> </div> <div><strong>Check it out!</strong></div> <div><a href="http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk">http://www.vatsimsigs.co.uk</a></div> <div> </div>

I am fine

2010-07-28T22:20:20+00:00

Normally when I hear the words “I am fine” it is a fib, but really, I am okay. If you follow me or my friends on Twiter you may heave heard I was assaulted on Tuesday night on the way back home from a photo walk.

I am not going to say much about what happened now, both because the Police are investigating, and because all I want to do now is go to bed. I have been awake for over 38 hours and really need sleep. The summery is I was hit once by one of two lads who were drunk and looking for trouble.

Currently I am in a decent state despite falling badly. I have a fractured arm, but we are hoping it will not need a plaster putting on it. I am doing physiotherapy and need to keep popping to hospital to monitor this. I am slightly bumped and bruised but it could have been fare worse. No significant cuts but some grassing. The pain is well within my pain tolerances and I should be able to continue an abnormal in a few days. I hope to make a full recovery in 6 to 8 weeks.

I must say a big thank you to fellow photographer Brit who helped get me in an ambulance. Also a huge thank you to my friends and followers who have been great. I have pages and pages of public and private good wishes. My phone’s SMS inbox is full and the voicemail has given up. Several people from across the country have offered to jump on a train and keep me company. I have been welling up reading some of the messages. I am very lucky. I will reply to you directly soon if I have not done so already.

Finally I have to say that everyone, and I mean everyone I have met at the NHS and Police service have been amazing. I felt that my well-being was the most important thing to them throughout.

Using generic handlers in Dynamics CRM

2010-07-28T09:58:00+00:00

Sometimes you need to add functionality to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that cannot be easily achieved by simply adding JavaScript to form and field events.

One way to add extra complex functionality to CRM is to use a generic handler .ashx code file.

For example if you want to copy a quote and it's quote products this is not easily achieved using JavaScript and is not possible using the standard CRM workflows.

To make use of a .ashx generic handler is a 3 step process:

Create the .ashx handler that performs the required functions and deploy it to your CRM server
Add a JavaScript function to a form that will call the .ashx and handle the returned result
Update the ISV.config to add a button to the relevant entity so that the user can trigger the functionality

1. Create .ashx handler

To create the handler you will need a new Visual Studio project. Add a Generic Handler (.ashx) code file to the project and then add references to the CRM web services.

Add your code to provide the desired functionality.

Click this link to download the .ashx code files for copying a Dynamics CRM quote

The application then needs to be deployed to IIS.

2. Add a JavaScript function to call the handler and display the returned result

Add the JavaScript to the onload event of the form where this functionality will be called. In this example of copying a quote add the function to the onload event of the Quote main form.

CopyQuote = function()
{
InitXmlHttp();
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange= XMLHttpRequestCompleted;
// use the url to your generic handler project here - in this case I have deployed the project to the website that is running CRM
xmlhttp.open("GET", "http://YourCRMServer/CRM.GenericHandlers/CopyQuote.ashx?id="+crmFormSubmit.crmFormSubmitId.value , true );
xmlhttp.send(null);
function InitXmlHttp() {
// Attempt to initialize xmlhttp object
    try
    {
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
    }
    catch (e)
    {
        // Try to use different activex object
        try
        {
            xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
        }
        catch (E)
        {
            xmlhttp = false;
        }
    }

    // If not initialized, create XMLHttpRequest object
    if (!xmlhttp && typeof XMLHttpRequest!='undefined')
      {
            xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
      }
      // Define function call for when Request obj state has changed
      xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=XMLHttpRequestCompleted;
}
function XMLHttpRequestCompleted()
{
        if (xmlhttp.readyState==4)
    {
        try
        {
            alert(xmlhttp.responseText);
        }
        catch (e)
        {
        }
    }
}
}

3. Update ISV.config to add a button to call the CopyQuote() JavaScript

Export the ISV.config file and add the following to the Quote section:

Save the updated ISV.config file and import it back into CRM.

The result of this is that you now have a button on the Quote form called Copy Quote. When this button is clicked the JavaScript calls the .ashx file which copies the quote and then sends a message back to the JavaScript to let the user know if the operation has been successful.

Can SEO analytics backfire?

2010-07-27T19:37:40+00:00

For those readers of this blog who don’t happen to read the Boston Globe I’d like to share a fascinating link: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full The article is about how readers of political articles, when faced with the corrected facts about the article they’ve read, actually become more adamant and entrenched in their misinformed views rather than less as [...]

SuperMondays UX – a review

2010-07-27T19:30:54+00:00

Update 30/07/10: Added slide shares of presentations and also the speakers UX reading lists. Another interesting night at SuperMondays. I won’t say too much because David Coxon over at his blog has said it so much better! Much thanks goes to Joanne Richardson (@joanne84 and also on Posterous) from @orangebus. It was originally Joanne’s idea [...]

BACKFlip Networking

2010-07-27T15:25:36+00:00

BACKFlip Networking is the easiest way to promote your business to around 150 people in just a couple of hours. You can sell your products and services easly with either a flipchart space or a display table. If you’d like to exhibit at BACKFlip it’s really simple and inexpensive. All you need is a pile of Business Cards and yourself, no expert marketing knowledge is needed.

Tickets Now On Sale For Exhibitors, for more information visit: http://backflip.eventbrite.com/ for more information.

Supermonday UX

2010-07-27T00:14:14+00:00

User eXperience or UX has to be one of the buzz words of the year, and it seems when it comes to creating the ultimate surfing experience everyone from marketing agencies and pr people to designers and developers wants to get in on the act.

Such a hot topic, had to the the subject of a Supermondays session soon or later, and Joanne Richardson of Orange Bus certainly did it justice this month. Not only did Joanne curate the session, arranging talks from Graham Morely of graphic.ly and Th_nk’s Director of Ux, Lee Alan, but she also presented herself, apparently presenting for the first time, although you wouldn’t have guessed it from her delivery to another full house, this time at Gateshead Colleges Baltic Campus.

The general messages that came from all three speakers was that User eXperience didn’t have to be expensive, but that it should be considered, and that it should be an iterative process, that is to say that it should be reconsidered and revised after each phase of design and development.

For me it was really refreshing to hear the speakers talking about adapting and simplifying, and avoiding feature creep. These days its all to common to see companies adding more and more bells and whistles to sites, without considering whether they actually add value to the user.

I’m going to leave you with Joanne’s closing comments UX is about user stories and about creating “Happy Experiences”, and a reminder from the team that if you missed out on Supermonday this month, then you have a second chance to get out and do a bit of social networking with SuperSummer this Thursday.

Presentations: Start up UX – Graham Morley , A day in the life of a UX designer – Joanne Richardson

Book Recommendations: The Design of Everyday Things - Donald Norman , Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks - Luke Wroblewski , Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Steve Krug ,

Online Resources: pivottracker , patterntap , iconfinder , konigi

pingpong ball matrix (2x7x8)

2010-07-26T12:13:26+00:00

pingpong ball matrix (2x7x8)

Originally uploaded by Dr Brian
@coldclimate and @sc_r making things during howduino

Howduino, what a great event/weekend at the centre for life.
So we had two days of 6 hours each to make stuff around arduino or electronics in general. There were a lot of matrix light projects from @coldclimates and @sc_r s ping pong matrixes, to lee and friends amazing skip finds (two great matrix displays). Another theme was that of remote controll, with @alistair controlling a servo over the internet, and another team a remote controll car from their computer.
There was also the hacking of an animatronic head(yoda like) and the control of housegold power sockets(peter) through a networked arduino. Sophie did a squigglebot, and there was a whiteboard drawer, thom did a dalek that found your face (using the webcam) and pointed his blue led laser gun at you. @oomlout contributed to a lot of the projects, and jim of @sonodrome demoed using a led as an input(light detecting) and output(light o) device, nice one
These are all the ones I remember, but it would be great to get a complete list.

What did I do?
Investigated using a ldr to get an idea of motor spin speed. In the future this will be great for getting an idea of how fast a centrifuge is spinning, or using it as a counter for bees entering and leaving a beehive.

Infosanity

2010-07-25T12:48:05+00:00

This morning I cause myself a problem. Annoyingly it was foreseeable and avoidable, this is my excuse (not great, but I’ll stick to it). But as every problem is merely an opportunity in disguise whist I’m re-building systems I might as well document the process. The original InfoSanity guide for installing Kippo was based off of the latest stable version, but I rapidly migrated to the development SVN on learning of the MySQL logging capabilities, so this guide covers that.

Packages

As I’m using a Debian system a lot of the system pre-requisites are packaged, this aren’t all needed immediately but we might as well grab them all at once.

apt-get install subversion #for svn
apt-get install python-twisted python-mysqldb # Python and required modules
apt-get install mysql-server #

Basic Kippo setup

Grab Kippo direct from svn, at time of writing I got version 160. (latest instructions):

svn checkout http://kippo.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ /opt/kippo-svn

Now we can start the honeypot system:

./start.sh

That’s it, all that is required to get the system running. To confirm you can ssh locally with ssh -p2222 root@127.0.0.1, unless you’ve jumped ahead and edited the config, password will be 123456.

MySQL

Log into MySQL via commanline, assuming you’ve not modified the kippo.cfg database directives build the database:

create database kippo;
grant all on kippo.* to ‘kippo’@'localhost’ identified by ‘secret’;

Next edit the kippo.cfg accordingly you database/user/password and uncomment the [database] configuration directives. REMEBER to uncomment ;[database] line not just the parameters, that has now caught me out twice.

Finally, build the database structure with the script that can be found in <kippo>/doc/sql/:

doc/sql/# mysql -ukippo -psecret kippo < mysql.sql

Restart your Kippo process and you should be good; re-test access to the shell and view the database tables to confirm that logs are being written to the database.

Happy Honeypotting

–Andrew Waite

Infosanity

2010-07-24T11:42:44+00:00

When discussing some of my recent findings with Kippo I’ve been asked a few times for suggestions for how people can prevent their systems from being compromised via this vector. A quick Google search shows that there are already a number of good resources covering the options, including: Debian Administration Article and Securing Debian Manual. However, the high number of options can leave people unsure where to start so I’ll summarise some of those that are more common and can provide the highest return on investment for the time taken to make the change.

N.B. a lot of the suggestions below are valid for most/all remote access functionality.

Restrict access from unknown locations

If possible (it isn’t always) restrict access to only come from known and trusted sources. This can be down at multiple choke points in the network and system; perimeter firewall, host firewall (iptables etc.) or sshd config. For working with sshd the /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny, for example:

/etc/hosts.allow

#Corporate HQ gateway
sshd: 1.2.3.4/255.255.255.255

/etc/hosts.deny

#Generic Deny All
sshd: ALL

It doesn’t matter how insecure your system is, if an attacker can’t connect and communicate with a vulnerable service they can’t exploit it, period.

Restrict remote root access

Preventing remote access to the root account can reduce the damage that can be caused by a compromised. With SSH this can be achieved with a single configuration line:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

PermitRootLogin no

Only allow access to specific accounts

Does every account on you system need to be able to remotely access the system via SSH? No? Then why can it?

Remote system access can be restricted on a per user basis. This can be either as a whitelist using the AllowUsers directive or as a blacklist with the DenyUsers directive. For example, if I only wanted to allow my own account access via ssh:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

AllowUsers andrew

These capabilities can be useful with certain honeypot systems; if you create a weak user account linked with an ftp or pop3 honeypot (for example), then the same weak accounts can be prevented from gaining access to a shell with the DenyUsers directive, limiting the weak account to only access those services that are being monitored.

Run on non-standard port

Yes, this is ‘security by obscurity’; if this is the only change you make you haven’t really improved security any, but it is still useful as part of wider security posture. Attackers are continually scanning the internet looking for new systems to exploit, currently the ISC statistics show connections to tcp22 at around 100k targets; even moving to a relatively common alternative port of 2222 drops the malicious traffic by around 90%.

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Port 2222

This reduces the number of malcious attempts targeting the service, which will both reduce processor/network load and ‘noise’ in the log. If you now get a burst of failed log-in attempts in the logs, then this may be indicative of a specific attacker rather than just the usual background noise of bots and worms scanning for new victims.

Summary

Implementing the above can drastically improve SSH security above the defaults, with a relatively small effort required providing a great ROI. So what’s your excuse? Go harden that SSH installation

–Andrew Waite

It’s true: a sales process will increase your confidence

2010-07-23T14:50:19+00:00

We have just finished the fifth and final workshop of our first Selling at a Higher Level blended sales training programme.

Part of this final session was spent reflecting on how the programme has helped to develop the attendees selling skills. One comment that was reflected around the room was how having a sales process has significantly increased their confidence. Whilst not surprising to me, what was interesting was that many of the delegates had not realised this was a likely output when they signed up to the programme. They now understand how vital confidence is to being successful in sales and how a sales process can help to develop and nurture this confidence.

We designed and developed the course to bring structure and process to sales peoples’ professional lives. We have had a wonderful mix of students on the programme – business owners, experienced sales contributors and people who are brand new to selling. Each of them has taken away a range of tools, technique and sales blueprints designed to help them sell more effectively. What’s more we have tried really hard to bring every tool and technique to life, to put it into context and to demonstrate how it can add value to the sales process.

The Engleby Associates Sales Methodology provides a backbone to the programme and over the five workshops we have moved from prospecting to identifying business problems and value propositions, to asking high impact questions, to qualifying, negotiating and closing. Perhaps most importantly we have discussed the importance of listening. Really listening. And trying our best to understand our prospects and customers. Being interested to be interesting. Always putting our feet in our prospects shoes.

At the end of the day though, the important thing to remember is that these tools and techniques sit within a process. If none of the tools are used but the process is remembered then that will be okay. At least they will have their sales roadmap and a sales plan. And we all know that with a plan the chances of attaining our goals increase dramatically.

As Elmer Letterman said;

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity

I’d like to thank the group for their engagement, openness and willingness to get stuck in. Tracy and I have really enjoyed working with them and we wish them every success for the future.

If you are interested in the sound of our blended sales training programme feel free to drop me a line. I’d be happy to talk through how we could run a similar one for you.

A nod to Joris (a UK perspective on DIYBio)

2010-07-22T10:40:22+00:00

: Image by Dr Brian via Flickr

One of the great things about making the maker faire in Uk each year was catching up with Joris Peels. He speaks his mind, and this is refreshing. Formetrly of Shapeways (and not sure what hes hatching now), we have had a few discussions about what would be usefull for DIYBio.

Basically, how do we DIYBios make this a legitimate pastime, or pursuit, or calling. I welcome some regulation, but can currently see, that by not running a business, regulations do not necessarily apply, as most are dedicated to regulating WORKPLACE not homes.

At the moment I can’t see any regulations that apply, as we are not working with genetically modified organsisms, and keeping to type 1 (harmless) organisms. It does get interesting when people want to do GE in the garage. Next year the Biological agents and Genetically modified Organisms(Contained use) 2011 regulation comes into to force. This may impact on the iGem teams if they are working with organism new to the labs they are working in.

The problem with this hole in regulation I see, is basically, if not regulated to an extent, DIYBio may become illegal due to biosafety concerns.

A brief set of rules that I am working by

1) don’t bring persistant poisons into the house, look for the safest way of doing something, not the fastest. This is not much different to what is done with electronics in the house. If you want to etch using the ferric chloride way, you are left with a persistent poison. There are alternatives (http://hackaday.com/2008/07/28/how-to-etch-a-single-sided-pcb/)

MSDS tells you what poisons are, and their actions. there are many things in the laboratory that are incompatable with home labs. Ethidium Bromide comes to mind, its used to stain DNA, but now there are much safer alternatives. They may seem more expensive, but when you take into account waste disposal, i’d say they are much cheaper.

2) dont work with pathogens, its not worth it.

It does supprise me when people want to culture pathogens without the proper safety equiptment and risk analysis. There are so many other things to explore, like fermentation of beer, making yogurt, sourdough making, cheese making, that are all much more worthy of study and tasty.

3) cleaning hands before and after handling microbes. I have used bathrooms as a easy DIYBio lab for culturing glowing bacteria from seafood (see http://letters.cunningprojects.com/?p=97)

4) minimise waste, think about using slightly more expensive glassware than disposable plasticware

5) have a decontamination strategy, bleach and rinse

6) be very carefull about mixing strong chemicals, many are not compatible. (I would like to get a list of these)

DIY Bio.

Infosanity

2010-07-21T18:03:08+00:00

So far my Kippo honeypot installation has recieved a number of successful log ins from maliciuos users, some of which have been helpful enough to provide some tools for further analysis. A lot of the archives which have been downloaded show that the kits have been in use for a while, with some archive timestamps going back as far as 2004 (of course this could simply be an incorrect clock on the machine that created the archive). Picking on the most recent download (2010-07-18) I’ve taken a look at the archive containing gosh.tgz.

The archive was downloaded from linux<dot>hostse<dot>com<slash>gosh<tgz>, system is down at time of writing but take care if attempting to investigate yourself. Before downloading the user checked around the system with commands: w, uname -a and cat /proc/cpuinfo, and archive was downloaded and extracted in /dev/shm/.

Once extracted, the archive contains a number of files:

1:	ISO-8859 English text, with CRLF line terminators
2:	ASCII text
3:	ASCII C++ program text, with CRLF line terminators
4:	ASCII text
5:	ASCII text
a:	ISO-8859 text, with CRLF line terminators
common:	ASCII C++ program text
gen-pass.sh:	Bourne-Again shell script text executable
go.sh:	ASCII text
mfu.txt:	ASCII text
pass_file:	ASCII text
pscan2:	ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, not stripped
scam:	Bourne-Again shell script text executable
secure:	Bourne-Again shell script text executable
ss:	ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 2.0.0,stripped
ssh-scan:	ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 2.0.0, stripped
vuln.txt:	empty

Interesting files:
Files 1 to 5, common and pass_file are password lists, totalling 235,523 potential passwords.
mfu.txt is a list of IP addresses, mostly in the 38.99.0.0/16 address space.
pscan2 is a fairly common and generic port scanner.
scam is a shell script that appears to be the core brains of the toolkit. It essentially looks through scanning a different ranges of IP addresses while periodically emailing the contents of vuln.txt back to it’s master (mafia89tm@yahoo.co.uk).
ss: appears to be another scanner used for looking for potential targets.
ssh-scan: appears to be a Romanian tool from the message provided if run without arguments, according to Google Translate (possibly NSFW), and as you would guess from the file name is a scanner for SSH services.
vuln.txt is blank in the archive, and will be the output of vulnerable systems located by the scanners.

All told this appears to be a kit for performing further scans for unsecured SSH sessions, and it is likely that a similar kit hosted on a different compromised machine was responsible for identifying my installation in the first place. Kits like this also quickly show the problem with tracking down the malicious user behind an compromise or attempt, it is rare for attacks to be launched from systems that can easily be traced back to the malicious user.

A quick Google search confirms that this kit (and user) has been seen in the wild attacking other systems, this posting on the Shell Person blog writes up the aftermath after a production system was compromised by the same kit.

–Andrew Waite