James Lloyd

Not only a fashion statement, but something to keep your top lip warm in these winter months. I'm in.

This morning, I flicked on the media centre to listen to some music, browsing to music library and the music is jumping all over the shop. What appeared to be happening, was media centre re scanning my library. This was very annoying particularly as I hadn't added anything in a couple of months. So whats the solution, seeing as the wife has gone Christmas shopping, I decided to format the system and install OSx 10.4.9 an uphuck release. bit ott?

Note: This does not work without a service pack, requires Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 at least I have been pulling my hair out trying to get, PHP to bind to Active Directory with Secure LDAP (LDAPS) on port 636. This is in fact rediculously simple, so I can only assume everyone who's has worked this out doesn't want to share it with the rest of us!. Solution:.....

These instructions have been updated for Ubuntu 8.10 HERE I did this a while a go, when i was getting asterisk to forward my home voice mail to me and my wifes email address'. Add the following to your sendmail.mc define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.gmail.com:465') define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl FEATURE(`authinfo',`hash /etc/mail/auth/client-info')dnl

I have been assigned at work as technical lead for a 500 host virtualisation project, my first part of which is to assess the current virtualisation technologies and produce a report explaining the benefits of each etc. As part of this process I'm including windows 2008.

Ju st found this how to get your Vista refund!

Thought i'd list a couple of Mac OSX annoyances, as you generally dont see them documented any where. Bare in mind I use Linux, OSX, and all windows flavours (including vista (ick :P )), so I constantly flick between them.

Just been playing around with leopard for a couple of days now. No problems with Isync and my (Nokia 8800) or my wife's (Sony k800i) hoorah!. However I just went to send a text message to my wife using address book over bluetooth, as I would of in 10.4 and the feature has been removed. There appears to be no mention of bluetooth at all in address book.

Last night rebuilt my Mac book Pro with leopard, a very painless exercise. First new and amazing feature, the welcome movie is now full screen! The OS UI has been tweaked every so slightly notably making the top bar slightly transparent and the dock is now a bit shiny and a bit slanty. Your probably realising that the new features are a bit weak so i'll list them:

Seeing loads of questions re SEO on linked in at the moment, and their generally followed by some cryptic answers trying to make this practice into some black art. So I have decided to publish some of the techniques I have discovered whilst developing sites as a web consultant and in some of my permanent roles.

Deprecated go HERE

Found another missing key on the macbook pro (probably the macbooks too). The delete key is quite conspicuous by its absence on the keyboard. However this isn't a great draw back as 99.9% of mac software don't appear to use and rely quite rightly on the backspace key. I have only found to reasons to find the delete key, the first is in RDP sessions to a windows machine and the second is using PSI to map msn gateways etc. to my googletalk account.

Finally Plaxo will sync you all your calendar and contacts between your mac pc (outlook) and google calendar and google contacts within gmail.

The Zalman coolers have now been fitted, and the good news is the reduction is noise is quite substantial. The bad news is its not quite where I wanted it. All of the remaining noise is coming from the 3 HD's and the northbridge cooler.

This has been superceeded by a Nokia Series 40 script Update: i have created a script to make plugins for any series 40 nokia here

So my media centre is now in place in the lounge, and is looking rather fabulous, even while in black. Why the manufacturers insist on changing colours from silver to black every no and then I don't know.

Yesterday I got Vista Ultimate installed on my media centre. Installation all very smooth, except vista not having the drivers for my SATA 150 controller (why not its about 3 years old). Apart from that the install is all pretty smooth and possibly quicker than XP? That may not be actual fact as I was watching the Discovery channel at the time, learning about hovercraft (essential pub quiz research).

Yesterday my silverstone LM16 Media PC case arrived, all very exciting. So last night I after getting back from City link I immediately tor apart my desktop tower case.

Just Been overtaken by Five Mini Clubman Cooper S on the M4.  Camera phone so Crap picture. All five we're the same colour as shown and all left hand drive, and had the cooper S scoop and twin exhausts. Not sure what i think about the twin "van" rear doors.

I have found my self reading Abovetopsecret.com (ATOS) a lot again recently. Initially this was because of a conversation at work regarding siting of what could of been the " Aurora ". Reading the other articles on there and posts on the forum it would be easy to jump up and down and claim most if not all these people are either complete nut jobs, or Totally on the money.

Haven't posted much recently, so a quick Summary of what I have been up to. My home PBX is up and running. Currently irritating the wife as the server is sat under a chair in the lounge and it isn't very quiet. Need to re wire in the upstairs telephone points after ripping them all out for painting. Awaiting a SIP ATA to arrive so I can use my DECT base stations as extensions.

Currently im mainly learning about Asterisk an open source PBX switch, and today took delivery of an FXO card. This will allow me to connect my BT line to asterisk, and use asterisk to manage my answerphone. This is great because :

Has any one else been watching Derren Browns trick of the mind ? Tis very cool though I spotted the trick when the people who apply are given the choice of card to pick at random, (Trick or Treat). The cards he shows are in fact Ambigrams, I thought i was being clever until searching for a pic of the cards, spotted that wikipedia has it well covered. Dammit Wiki page here

Marcus has come up with some extremely tenuous realisation that im tighter than him with money.

hoorah, my room is set up, small issues currently being seating is the garden furniture and the walls are still Sparkly Pink (sort that out this week).

Great service from the Post Office. Just rang up the Royal Mail to change our mail redirection to the new house, only to find that they can't possibly change it until the redirection has completed its full 6 months. The reason I was given for this is good stuff.

Things are currently good, and slowly getting better. I now have a home! Was having to borrow one from my Sister. I now have my BMW back! (complete with no dents and debadged) Was having to borrow an MX5 from my Sister.

Just spotted php-AD-admin is getting ranking no.1 in a google for AD admin . Which as usual I'm finding quite exciting.

Havn't written much on her of late. Many due to not thinking of anything good to write, this has never stopped me before! So. Whats new, still trying to get mad2workhere.com of the ground, and am as usual slightly obsessed with getting as many of the sites pages indexed as possible.

I have been recently working on another site for a friend of mine. The site in question mad2workhere.com its a forum site specifically for employees to chat about their jobs*. Also it could be a good place to pimp Jobs that have come up at you work and try and find someone to in them, so you can claim your recruitment bonus.

I have commented recently that there is just too much traffic on the M27. Going anywhere between Southampton and Portsmouth in the morning will either take a ridiculous amount of time or you'll get caught up in a stupid little shunt. One such near pile happened in front of me this morning, my windscreen was lit up by the sudden braking of serveral cars directly in front of me.

Darren's is on a personal boycott of all DRM products, a boycott I heartily agree with. If you dont know what DRM is Darren explains better than I can be bothered here . Personally the thought that you can buy some music or a video but then only be able to listen or watch that on a device some fat cat, (I wouldn't normally use the phrase fat cat, but I saw the episode of that Simpsons recently where their all being thrifty, tins of Krill etc you know the one), erm fat cats yes, some fat cats has decided is fit for you to watch/listen to it on

So I have been living with my Macbook pro for about a week now. I'm still very impressed, I have discovered MAMP a MySQL Apache and PHP, which is making my random web developing very easy. I can see why designer types use macs. The the way the interface is layed out, so the would be windows file menu is always at the top simply makes sense, (though perhaps not immediately).

I recently took delivery of a spangly new macbook pro. I needed this as I wanted to use it for web development and some surfing etc. I am and have been using Windows for about 13 years, quite a long time, but not huge compared to others in my industry. Professionally in IT I have a different view point to most of my counterparts,

Im about to cancel my order for a PS3 which I pre-ordered from play some 6 months ago, but before I do anyone want to take my place in the queue? Our impending house purchase means I cant justify an Xbox 360 a PSP and a PS3. Damn these wives with their reason and logic.

Finally my macbook has arrived. So now I can do rinky stuff like publish entries like this one from a widget, widgets like Vista Gadgets but the spelling is subtly different! I can talk now, have new toy to play with!

The more observant of you (and the more geeky) will have noticed that several things have changed on this site. I have moved it off the old Windows hosting I was using in the states to, a spangly Linux based on also in the states. Why have you done this ? (no one cries as why would they its not very interesting to anyone but me, probably why are you posting about it is a more pertinent question)