Al: a blog about bikes and stuff.

  • E-bay search, mk2

    Having disliked E-bay’s new search so much, I am pleased to see that things seem to have gone back to the old ways. Not completely, but enough that things are usable again ๐Ÿ™‚ Well done E-bay for admitting when they messed up and sorting it.

  • E-bay’s new search

    Not sure when it went ‘live’ but I see today that E-bay has a new search. God its terrible! I search for “6001 bearing” and it only shows me results from “Car and Vehicle”, listing 4 results. It has a link to another group, “pocketbikes” with another result, but thats it. I know damn well…

  • Apache 2.2 on Morgins

    I upgraded Apache from 2.0 to 2.2 on Morgins this morning. Gentoo seem to try and make this process as difficult as possible ๐Ÿ™ The script on the upgrade page, which makes the APACHE_OPTIONS line for make.conf, cocks up and puts dashes instead of underscores, and also misses some basic options you will want, like…

  • Apple ripping off the UK again

    So, in the US an AppleTV got its price cut from 299USD to 229USD. With your new AppleTV you can, in the US, rent movies and such. Here in the UK though we don’t get movie rentals and nor do we get a price cut, an AppleTV still costs 199GBP. Rip-off. Thanks Apple.

  • Dell R200 power consumption

    I had not seen any real world power consumption figures for the new Dell R200 1U servers, so as I have a paid sat behind me I thought I’d stick a power meter on and see what they draw. Turned off, 0.11Amps. Booting, peak at 0.69Amps. Turned on and sat pretty much idle, 0.49Amps. Power…

  • Joined up thinking

    Credit where credit is due as they say. So I’d like to give some credit to Dear Auntie Beeb for releasing a Mac/Linux compatible version of their iPlayer. I knew I was going to miss Buzzcocks this evening so I aquired a DVI->HDMI cable and hooked my MacBook up to the tele. It worked better…

  • Welcome to 2008, we’ve deleted you.

    Happy New Year. It is indeed 2008 already. I hope you had a good 2007 and here’s to a better yet 2008. That said, if you are 1and1 Internet, may you have a thoroughly miserable 2008. For some unknown reason 1and1 have delisted ‘southerndownhill.com’ from their systems. The domain is registered ’til April, there are…

  • What did you get for Christmas? Flu?

    So how was your Christmas? Did you get all you wanted? I’m not sure that flu was on the list of my better half and kids, but they got it anyway. I seem to have missed out for the most part, just a head cold mainly. 3 days in bed seems to have helped the…

  • Desktop USB switching

    ATM I have two keyboards and mice on my desk. One pair for the G4 and one pair for the Macbook. The monitor allows me to switch between two inputs, so thats easy, but I had thought I’d be stuck with two sets of input devices. However, whilst looking at USB hubs in Maplin on…

  • Need a new co-lo host

    Morgins’ ISP has decided to up the cost of the colo, so I am looking around at alternatives. I need 1U, not much bandwidth (I have 100GB/month ATM and its fine) and 0.75amps. It is the amps that cause the problems it seems. Any experience / advice / pointers gratefully received ๐Ÿ™‚

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