I was discussing setting up a webmail app with a friend. He recommended using SSH port forwarding instead.

This makes much more sense to me: I won't have to mess around with webmail (setting up PHP and SSL) and I will have less ports open.

Quite a simple idea, and actually very good for wireless networks too.

user:laptop ~$ ssh -f -C -N -L1430:localhost:143 -L2525:localhost:25 user@mailhost

You then setup your MUA to use your localhost and the ports defined (1430 for IMAP and 2525 for SMTP in this example). If you want to use lower ports, you'll need root access.

This is not limited to mail. You can forward any TCP port you feel like. Yay for SSH!

user:laptop ~$ ssh -f -C -N -L1190:my.news.server:119 user@server

Useful Books

Venue: Odeon, Guildford

Tarantino claimed the first film was a made up of a series of moments you wanted to see, with none of the moments in-between.

It appears that he has forgone this maxim for Vol 2. This is the part with the exposition lacking in Vol 1. This means a lower body count, but more Tarantino dialogue.

Where Vol 1 seems to have been born from anime and a more Japanese style, Vol 2 has its roots from Chinese kung-fu movies, and spaghetti westerns. This actually felt more like previous Tarantino films than Vol 1.

I heard one person on the way out stating how "sequels are never as good as the originals". Good thing this isn't a sequel then. This is the second half of one film. Consider the time since the last movie as an intermission and you'll be fine.

Roughly translated as "Fun", this film sadly thought that comedy hasn't changed in 20 years.

The film's premise is men who are disappointed with their married lives decide to spice it up a little, with consequences. The first half showed some promise, despite the lack of good songs.

Then it deteriorated into some sort of Benny Hill nightmare. Needless to say, I walked out. Apparently, it ended as some sort of moral tale about how one shouldn't mess about when married.

On the up side, since we were in Southall, we had a very tasty dinner at Roxy's. Then a quick drink at the Glassy Junction (the first pub in the UK where you can pay in Rupees), before heading home.

I'm amazed at my little car.

I hadn't driven it in a couple of weeks, so first thing to do was jump it. Might be time to get a new battery. Then, I managed to drive about 50 miles on fumes! For some reason my mind told me that the needle over the red was a full tank.

As the needle hadn't shifted when I arrived, I was quite impressed at the mileage. Thankfully, I came to my senses near the beginning of my return trip and refilled the tank. There were lots of broken down cars on the way back. Maybe the weather (it was pissing it down) caused a mass delusion as to the state of fuel tanks.

This is not a definitive guide, just some notes about what I did to set up my software RAID 1 on SuSE 8.2.

SuSE 8.2 was installed and running on a 10GB drive. I bought 2x120GB drives to create a fileserver.

Initially, I was intending to replace the 10GB drive with the 2 new ones. I changed my mind because I would like the data to be separated from the rest of the system. So I decided the 10GB would hold / and the RAID devices would only be for swap, /var, and /home.

Disks:

• /dev/hda 10GB
• /dev/hdb 120GB
• /dev/hdc 120GB

I installed the disks, then started up yast (System->Partitioner). On each of /dev/hdb and /dev/hdc I created 3 partitions - each one set to be a RAID partition (File System ID: 0xFD Linux RAID).

Yast is fine if you only want one RAID device. However, it has problems when you want to manipulate more than one. This is not a big deal, just a little annoying.

Nevertheless, I attempted to create three RAID devices using yast. I created RAID device /dev/md0 and added the largest partitions from hdb and hdc; this would be /home. Now to add 2 more RAID devices.

To create another RAID device, you Edit RAID and in the top right hand corner is the option to Add RAID. However, yast didn't let me add any partitions to a new RAID device. I ended up with /dev/md1 and /dev/md2 as zero-sized devices.

I wrote the partition table and quit yast. Now to edit /etc/raidtab. This is the file as yast left it.

#/etc/raidtab
raiddev /dev/md0
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    2
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4
  device   /dev/hdb3
  raid-disk 0
  device   /dev/hdc3
  raid-disk 1

raiddev /dev/md1
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    0
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4

raiddev /dev/md2
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    0
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4

This is the edited /etc/raidtab

#/etc/raidtab
raiddev /dev/md0
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    2
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4
  device   /dev/hdb3
  raid-disk 0
  device   /dev/hdc3
  raid-disk 1

raiddev /dev/md1
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    2 ### changed
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4

### changed ###
  device   /dev/hdb1
  raid-disk 0
  device   /dev/hdc1
  raid-disk 1
###############

raiddev /dev/md2
  raid-level       1
  nr-raid-disks    2 ### changed
  nr-spare-disks   0
  persistent-superblock 1
  chunk-size        4
### changed ###
  device   /dev/hdb2
  raid-disk 0
  device   /dev/hdc2
  raid-disk 1
###############

I issued the mkraid command to create the RAID devices. I had to force these: mkraid -f /dev/md1 mkraid -f /dev/md2

I went back into yast and set the new RAID devices to format and set one to swap. I did not want to set /var just yet as I had /var on my original 10GB disk and still wanted to copy over the data.

I rebooted into single user mode to move /var.

# mkdir /mnt/new_var
# mount /dev/md2 /mnt/new_var
# (cd /var tar -cpf -.) | (cd /mnt/new_var; tar -xpf -)
# umount /mnt/new_var
# rm -rf /var ; mkdir /var
# mount /dev/md2 /var

I added the new /var to /etc/fstab, then rebooted the system.

/proc/mdstat will tell you the current state of your RAID devices. I have set up a script to monitor it, but a quick realtime check is: watch /proc/mdstat

Reinventing the Yo-Yo: Science News Online, April 17, 2004

The last time I bought a yo-yo was a few years ago. The Playmaxx Turbo Bumblebee was my favourite model. Their Pro-Yos were also fun. Apparently, Duncan wisely bought Playmaxx not too long ago. (More details anyone?) I'm a little sad at this news, but I hope the Duncan Bumblebee will be as sweet as the original.

However, if you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket, and you want some serious sleep capabilities, Duncan may well have the answer. I honestly don't know who would buy a $400 yo-yo, but I guess it will be the same 40-50 year olds who buy original Les Pauls as show pieces.

Assuming you had rich and generous friends, which would you rather receive: a Duncan Freehand Mg or a 20G iPod?

(via /.)

The server is back up now. Thanks for your patience.

I have had a couple of fun days learning from my mistakes and cursing legacy hardware (like my 200W PSU in the ATX case which has a hardware on/off switch).

All good now though - I have a 120GB software RAID 1 array. Yay! Now I just have to start transfering files to the new system.

UPDATE: Recommend you use the newer patch

Amazon have just sent out a notice that AWS version 1 will stop working on 16th April 2004.

This does not affect MTAmazon users. MTAmazon uses version 2, which will continue to function. However, they recommend that we upgrade to version 3. In other words, you don't have to apply this patch, but you may have to down the line.

This patch includes the country enhancements from my previous patch. Please patch against the original MTAmazon.pm file, not a previously patched file.

Patches

• MTAmazon.snowblink.20040414.patch
  MD5: 53deb5b9b5b14175ccea21c0e5ed38b1

Usage

Install

The last Gibson I read was Virtual Light.

This isn't a cyberpunk novel. At least not strictly. I think we have to realise that it was 20 years ago when Gibson first wrote Neuromancer. Gibson is writing in a shadow of that future he first created. Ours.

His protagonist, Cayce, is a cool-hunter. She determines what is new and upcoming, whether something works or doesn't. She has an physical aversion to particular logos, which may explain how she does her job so well. We follow her around the world as she unravels the mystery surrounding "the footage". The footage has attracted a cult net following. A series of short images and film. No one knows where it comes from. What it means. Who is making it. Whether it is part of a larger complete work, or a work in progress. It's up to Cayce to find out.

Gibson has researched and visited locations in the book better than most. His descriptions of London are very apt. I found his observation of understanding a city as a series of ways leading out from underground stations to be quite true. How many tourists still travel to Covent Garden by tube?

It reminded me a little of Banks' The Business. However, I felt that this provided a better mystery and a more complete ending.

Simon Pegg kindly chatted to fans via IRC, courtesy of Spaced Out.

For those of you who don't know. Shaun of the Dead is out this week. Simon Pegg wrote and starred in it. Actually a very nice guy, even prompting us when Dawn of the Dead started on BBC2.

Around 100 people showed up for the chat, and we had to submit our questions. I got 3 posted: > [23:17:06] Who would you like to pencil the SoTD graphic novel adaptation?

[23:18:08] I'm not that good an artist.

[23:22:28] Bit of a moral question here... Do you think this film will encourage people to kill zombies?
[23:23:12] Hope so snow.

[23:39:34] Do you think Lucas will redeem himself with episode 3?
[23:39:45] Doubt it snow.

I'm sure a fuller transcript will be posted on the Spaced Out.

I found this film to be a series of amusing sketches, badly stitched together. It just felt a little slow at times, as the story struggled to get to the next sketch.

However, the look of the film was spot on. The Gran Torino was the obvious star, with all the wheel spin and tail sliding that we all love. Stiller and Wilson played their parts admirably, but felt incomplete. Snoop played a well dressed Huggy Bear, although somewhat higher in the chain than the original.

An occasional poke at the 70s, and anachronisms common to these types of film, kept me vaguely entertained til the end. I think for these kinds of movies you have to feel the entire cast and crew were having a blast. Maybe they did, but I didn't catch that vibe.

A farming game.

Farming? Yes, I keep cows and chickens. I grow crops. I fish. Farming!

However, the point of the game is to get married and have a kid who will continue to look after your farm. To this end, you have to woo one of three girls:

• Celia (the brunette) is a farmer type. Likes flowers. The girl-next door. I think I'll marry her.
• Muffy (the blonde) is the local barmaid. A bit of a flirt and probably has a thing with the local poet/guitarist. She likes shiny things.
• Nami (the redhead) is the girl who's just stopping in town. She is too cool for her own good. I imagine she'll be a tough wife, if you do manage to marry her.

The game involves a cast of characters in the village who you have to befriend. Well, you don't have to, but it is more fun if you do. This involves talking to them and giving gifts (like the strawberries you grew).

There are some parts which may go over the heads of some kids. For example, you can eat some magic mushrooms and go hang out in the tree with the stoned elves. There is also some sort of animal wandering around which no one else seems to notice. It likes fish.

The game is strangely addictive and I can't wait to see what happens in the second year. I hear you get married. I'm curious whether or not you can have a bit on the side once you're married. I can currently court all 3 girls with no repercussions. I'll let you know.

• hmotaku.net