BBC FTSE Oops

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Brian

I do hope the Beeb have this wrong….

I hope this is wrong

I hope this is wrong

BBC Market Watch data

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Ubuntu updates and apt-move

Posted on December 14, 2008 by Brian

As mentioned elsewhere I have been playing with Ubuntu Server 8.10 and this has resulted in numerous installation attempts as I tried to get a repeatable build. The first couple of times I installed the server from scratch, I downloaded all the updates. Pretty quickly I thought this was a waste of time and I wondered if I could save those updates to a CD.

The solution was in the ‘apt-move’ command. I am not going to claim to fully understand what I did but the instructions found in the ubuntu documentation seemed to work with one caveat. The documentation refers to dapper. All occasions were replaced by intrepid without obvious complications.

When I ran the next install I loaded the CD on to they system which significantly decreased the time to do the updates and reduced the data downloaded. It also seemed to pick up any other packages (such as Virtualbox) that I had downloaded though I seemed to need to add in the CD archive on each occasion I used aptitude.

The other problem I had was in creating a GPG key for ‘root’.

The most useful tip was how to become sudo (root) permanently.

sudo -s -H

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Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 and vboxdrv kernel compilation problems

Posted on December 12, 2008 by Brian

It is a long story but I have been trying to get a stable and repeatable way of building an Ubuntu Intrepid server for home use.  To cut a long story short (I will fill in the gaps later), I ended up with the Sun VirtualBox vboxdrv not being complied into the kernel.

Lots of digging later and I have a solution; Continue reading →

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Nokia E51 Applications

Posted on December 11, 2008 by Brian

I have had a Nokia E51 for a while now and think it is a great phone. Email and Nokia maps are excellent plus all the usual stuff. The only thing it lacks is a GPS. I got it as a business phone on a T-Mobile FlexT contract that gives me ‘unlimited’ Web and Walk. I don’t therefore have to worry about data costs. I have though become a buit more adventurous and adding in applications for podcasts, Google Maps and Fring. Continue reading →

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Moving to Sky

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Brian

After years of swearing blind I would not contribute to Murdoch’s millions (despite buying The Times) by going back to Sky, I am sure he will be happy that I have succumbed.

There were two main reasons; firstly I could get what I currently had in Broadband and Phone terms and add the Satellite TV for the same money – the TV was effectively free.  The second reason was that I live in Scotland. Not so bad you might say (and normally I would agree) but as an Englishman in Scotland there are a couple of drawbacks. The one that sent me to Sky was when the England Football match was on ITV England but not on STV. That was a disadvantage too far.

The law of unexpected consequence kicked in in two ways – Static IP and my own domain name. Continue reading →

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