Posts for the 'Rants' Category (Feed for this category)

Don't think this is how you repair a laptop

7th March, 2008     Life, Rants,

Back in November of last year, I noted that my laptop which was in service for a month, was finally returned back to me, and was as good as new! However, in late January, the laptop locked up, and would not boot anymore. So, it went back in for service, again under extended warranty. From what they told me, the motherboard in the laptop had died, and it needed replacing, but the part was on back order and would take some time to get shipped in. They kept me up to date with the latest on the status of the repair and waiting for the part, which was good, but was often the same thing, "Waiting on the part".

However, on Thursday I got a call in the morning to say that my laptop repairs had been completed and was ready for collection. On speaking to the person calling me, I confirmed with him that the Motherboard was the reason for the problem. I then discussed with him, my disappointment that the laptop had to be serviced again, for a problem that was supposedly fixed last time the laptop was in for service. He didn't seem to care, so I switched questions and asked if they were open on the Weekend. He said they were not, but could organise a Courier to deliver it for me.

It was at this stage I was hesitant, because I could just see them saying they would courier it, but only for $100, at my expense. So i asked the obvious question, "at my expense?". He assured me that it would not be. Great, I thought. About time they took some responsibility for their faulty repair, even if it was just delivery.

Today, the laptop arrived by courier, and I booted it up tonight, expeciting to be able to start reinstalling Linux back onto it.

But this is where the story goes sour..

I noticed as i was getting it out of the box they had shipped it back in, that the cdrom drive (which is slot loading), had some of the plastic facia coming away:

On seeing this, I was quite annoyed, because it seemed that they had damaged the laptop during fixing it. For now I figured, I would check to make it booted, before sending it back to get that replaced^. I was relieved when the computer started to boot, as they definately had fixed the problem. And this is where the relief finishes and ends for tonight.

The screen then came alive and I was greeted by the Acer bios prompt.

More photos of the screen

And then I became annoyed again, because it looks like the laptop that was supposedly fixed ... was not!

So now, on Monday, another call to the good old Extended Warranty place to tell them what has happened, and then to the repair (Highpoint) on Wednesday to show my disaproval and get it fixed.

Wonder if I can get it replaced for a newer model this time.. atleast that way I can almost be sure they haven't broke it .. yet.

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Houston, the laptop has landed

19th November, 2007     Life, Rants,

As can be noted by the title, my Laptop is now safely at home again, which is the good news.

The bad news is:

1. I had to ring them today to find out the status, only to find out that it was "ready since last week"
2. When i went to collect it, I was told I had to paid the unpaid invoice - Which should've been paid by the Underwriters. In the end, after I had to stand there and phone the underwriters, It came down to it was a stuff up by Highpoint, who had not invoiced the underwriters to pay. All they had sent was the quote, which was approved, but no formal invoice.
3. The above took me 45 minutes! Too damn long. Atleast I made them use their own phone and call me a cab. It's their fault.

Good news:

1. Laptop is back
2. Battery has been replaced (tho I haven't powered on to check this yet)
3. the fan and screen replaced.

If everything works fine, hopefully this is the last you hear from me on this topic :)

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Transformers on Wii

20th July, 2007     Wii, Rants,

While I have yet to see the movie (tho I want to), I went out and purchased the new Transformers game for the Nintendo Wii.

While the graphics seem great, and the game play could be great, it has the worst camera movement in a game, that I've seen in ages. It is so hard to keep track of what you are doing, that you end up not being able to see the Decepticons coming, because the camera things that you want to look at yourself.

That said, I finally got around to playing Rampage, and that was good fun, and the camera in that does not suck :)

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Secure Banking 101, Take 2.

22nd June, 2006     Life, Rants,

Some of you may remember that it was brought to the light before, the in-security of some password entering schemes, when the Westpac moved to their new system.

When, it looks like another is to follow a similar path, and maybe they have gotten it right.

It seems Credit Union Australia, on the 1st of July, will move over to a new system of where you can enter in your password either by the keyboard, or via their "Scramble Pad". Unlike the Westpac attempt, you can still enter with your keyboard if you so wish. Hopefully this is how it will stay. I have fired an email off to them to find out.

On the down side, they fail to get password security right, with the fact that passwords are only numeric, and only up to 6 digits long.

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April Fools Day Jokes gone totally wrong, and caught on logs.

2nd April, 2006     IRC, Rants, WTF,

So April Fools Day, has been and gone again, and a number of people are left standing there, looking like fools, either because they got suckered into another Joke, or their joke was so not funny, that it made them look bad.

Case in point: Rob Levin's "freenode is shutting down" 'joke', or as it should really be known, act of stupidity.

At 22:00 GMT, lilo (Rob Levin's nick on freenode), decided to send the following notice to every client on the freenode network (that's about 25,000 clients atleast)

[freenode] -lilo(i=levin@freenode/staff/pdpc.levin)- [Global Notice] Hmmm. You know, I could do an April Fool's Day joke, but maybe instead we should make this a group effort. Let's all just go to irc.oftc.net channel #oftc, and tell them that freenode has shut down and has repointed its servers to OFTC, and ask if they're going to be adding more facilities to handle the load. 8)

Well the events that unfolded from there, include 200 or so freenode users, joining the OFTC IRC Network, to carry out Rob Levin's 'prank'. While, this was not the 25,000 users that Rob had obviously been looking for (he did say that everyone should go and do it), the people that did join, did disrupt OFTC's network and #oftc channel for atleast 30 minutes (even tho if you asked Rob, it was only 5-10 minutes). And by disrupt, we mean that people connecting, were having difficulties, and there was also server lag, due to the great number of connects and data being sent at once.

OFTC people were not impressed and who can blame them.

You can see a log of the events here and screenshots of someone's IRC Client during the event on the following links: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

To me, these actions are similar to a Denial of Service attack. Or more so, a botnet controller, telling the bots in his botnet to go and connect to an IRC Network and flood a channel. (in this case it was a global notice, telling the not-as-smart to go and annoy people in a channel and flood - the evidence is in the logs.)

Now for a little bit of a log clipping:

<praetorian> oh, so you have no problem to next year or so, having people do the same to here? :-) <lilo> praetorian: now that you've told me, it would hardly be a prank <lilo> praetorian: sort of sounds a little angry

From this litttle clipping, you can obviously see from this, that asking if freenode minds having such a 'joke' next year, played on it, is not being nice and asking first, it seems that doing so is instead telling freenode that you plan on disrupting it's service. Come again?

The other point to note is, that Rob Levin, as President of the PDPC, and thus head of freenode staff, would know that OFTC exists, and is a rival network to what freenode tries to obtain (an open-source dedicated 'discussion' network). Thus this 'prank' can easily been seen as a way of causing problems for OFTC, under the guise of it being an April Fools Day joke. While Rob says it had nothing to do with the fact that OFTC is the rival, the question still remains, because no one will really ever know Rob Levin's reasons behind the 'prank'.

Edit: the IRC log snippet i pasted got eaten by the HTML tag monsters.

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Win32 API vs. Linux - Round One

7th March, 2006     Linux, Programming, Rants,

Before we start today's fight, we shall introduce you to the contestants, and a bit of background on each of them.

In the Red Corner, we have code written to work well with the Win32 API. The Win32 API is known for being part of Windows, and being able to kill its opponents easily, with the sheer size and complexity of itself. In the Blue Corner, we have code written to work well on Linux. Linux code being known to be quite easy to deal with, and not having heaps of levels of abstraction when it isn't neccesary.

These two come together today, to see who can write the better program that can: * Open a file, specified on the command line, for exclusive read only access. * Report if there was a problem opening the file, with an appropriate error message. * Close the file.

We would like to thank today's sponsor for this event, namely the Systems Programming 2 class that I am currently undertaking at University, and is making me learn how to code with the Windows API.

So that is enough, talk, lets see how the fight goes.

Windows starts off first by allowing a bit more complexity to its CreateFile() routine, but this is unfortunately useless, and not able to withstand the sheer simplicity of Linux's open() call, which beats it hands down.

In an attempt to reclaim, the match, Windows tries to claim that it can give a more superior error message handling routine, for when that file open does not work. Unfortunately, while Windows was still trying to type the function name for the routine to get the error message, Linux had already finished writing code to get and display the error message, thanks to perror(). In fact, Linux was so efficient, it decided to go one step better, and customise the error message all together.

In the end, it came down to closing the handle/file descriptor, to see if Windows would get a foot in, in this round, and it seems that it was a tie. Both Windows and Linux successfully made closing the open file nice and easy.

However, it the clear winner this round is the Linux code. Score: 2.5 - 0.5 -- Linux code wins.

To see the code used in this contest, and to agree with me that Linux definately wins this round in terms of better code/less code for this task, see the code below.

Windows

include <windows.h>

include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
           HANDLE hFileToRead;
           LPTSTR pszErrorMessageBuf;
           SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpSecurityAtrribs;

    lpSecurityAtrribs.nLength = sizeof(lpSecurityAtrribs);
    lpSecurityAtrribs.lpSecurityDescriptor = NULL;
    lpSecurityAtrribs.bInheritHandle = TRUE;

    if (argc &lt; 2)
    {
            fprintf(stderr, "Syntax: %s &lt;filename&gt;", argv[0]);
            return -1;
    }

    hFileToRead = CreateFile(
                    argv[1], GENERIC_READ, 0,
                    lpSecurityAtrribs, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);

    if (hFileToRead == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
    {
            FormatMessage(FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER|FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,
                    NULL, GetLastError(), 0, (LPTSTR)&pstrErrorMessageBuf, 0, NULL);

            fprintf(stderr, "Could not open file '%s': [%d] %s", argv[1],
                    GetLastError(), pstrErrorMessageBuf);
            LocalFree(pstrErrorMessageBuf);
            return -1;
    }
    else
            printf("File successfully opened.\n");

    if (!CloseHandle(hFileToRead))
            fprintf(stderr, "Error closing file...\n");

    return 0;
}
   

Linux code

include <stdio.h>

include <sys/types.h>

include <sys/stat.h>

include <fcntl.h>

include <errno.h>

include <string.h>

include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
           int fd;

    if (argc < 2)
    {
            fprintf(stderr, "Syntax: %s <filename>\n", argv[0]);
            return -1;
    }

    fd = open(argv[1], O_EXCL|O_RDONLY);
    if (fd == -1)
    {
            fprintf(stderr, "Could not open file '%s': [%d] %s\n",
                    argv[1], errno, strerror(errno));
            return -1;
    }
    else
            printf("File successfully opened.\n");

    if (close(fd))
            fprintf(stderr, "Error closing file...\n");

    return 0;
}
   

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PHP may suck...

20th February, 2006     Rants,

... but people who write bad PHP code suck more.

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no, just do it

18th February, 2006     Linux, Rants, WWW,

unless of course you can find an EXTREMELY GOOD reason, please make sure you do the following:

   grep -v register_globals php.ini > php.ini.new
   echo "register_globals = off;" >> php.ini.new
   mv php.ini.new php.ini
   

that is all.

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Broadband still sucks, atleast in Australia.

16th February, 2006     Linux, Rants, WWW,

I have been on ADSL since November 2004, I guess it is time for me to talk about my thoughts on how the future of ADSL in Australia is shaping.

During this time, I have been with WestNet, on a 512/128 plan. This has suited me well most of the time, but there is often times when I want more download speed. This includes situations such as downloading Ubuntu's "Dapper Drake" Flight CD's for testing, or when I periodically <a href="http://gentoo-wiki.com/Advanced_Emerge_World">emerge world</a> on my Gentoo systems.

But most of the time my down speed is fine. However, it is usually my up speed that annoys me. Being limited to 128 kilobits (or 16 kilobytes) of upstream can be very disadvantaging when you wish to use SSH to connect to things at home. Often it can be quite slow in response, especially if I am utilising the ADSL line to do anything else.

It isn't just me who is getting feed up with things like this, it is anyway who uses depends on their broadband for either work, education or whatever other means.

Some Australian ISP's have started to roll out their own DSLAM's in an attempt to fix this situation, which is fine, but in many cases, the cost can be significantly dearer to go with these options, as there is additional cost of buying, installing and configuration of these DSLAM's by the ISP. But these options are better than what we have ATM, so I Commend ISPs such as Internode, TPG, Adam Internet and iiNet for doing so. If Telstra doesn't start to upgrade their network infrastructure, I will most likely being going with one of these companies. (For these who aren't in Australia, Telstra owns most of the ADSL infrastructure in Australia, and resells this to most ISPs, hence my ISP Westnet, relies on Telstra's infrastructure to be able to provide faster service).

A good question for Telstra at the moment is when are they going to start rolling out ADSL 2 capable DSLAM's into their infrastructure. Personally, I can't see Telstra being in a hurry to do this, especially since they have proven they don't want to share anymore. Oh and this is probably already proven by the fact that Telstra/Bigpond like to charge excessively high rates for their services, such as Bigpond ADSL, which is currently $29.95 a month for their cheapest plan, on 256/64. You are probably thinking this would be quite cheap for someone who is a light internet user, and it would be. But when you look at the fact it comes with only 200MB of quota and it costs 15 cents per megabyte after that (that's $150 per 1000 megabytes), it isn't that cheap at all, especially when my ISP, WestNet, for the equivalent price, you can get a 500MB plan, on the same speed. Not that much of a difference, but there are many more cheaper ISP's out there. Just check out this listing on Broadband Choice. So to summarise this little rant, I think it's easy enough to say that ADSL, in Australia, sucks.

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Secure Banking 101

13th February, 2006     Life, Rants,

One way to make online banking less secure is to go with a retarded idea like this

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Work

7th December, 2005     Life, Rants,

I started a "3 month contract" on the 26th of november. So did 120 other people. We were all working in a call centre for a new product that was launching.

Today (Wednesday 7th December), they put us all off because the client who organised the product and the call centre to handle the demand for calls, miscalculated the number of calls they expected.

So I'm unemployed again.

Anyone got work for me until end of February? I'll do basically anything, as long as the pay is decent.

Prefer to do call centre or programming work, or even helpdesk, but yeah, anything would be nice really.

PS. I'm annoyed.

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Is IRC, Isn't freenode.

9th August, 2005     IRC, Life, Rants,

freenode, an IRC network by any other name (no, I will not call it a "Discussion network").

I hang out on freenode, to talk with some friends that I have made over the years, and also to get help and assist with some open source projects, namely Ubuntu and irssi, when I can.

However, I am most likely classified by Rob Levin, as one of the people he calls a 'Traditional IRC User'. What is a Traditional IRC User? Well you can read his thoughts on them on this wiki page. Do that before reading on. It should be noted that Rob Levin has not always been popular with everybody.

OK. Now that you have read the wiki page (and the quotes which are considerably biased to what a Traditional IRC User would call an 'idiot'), you might understand some of my disagreements with the stance.

The reason I have mentioned Traditional IRC Users, is because the following is going to detail annoyances that Traditional IRC Users and myself are going to have with freenode in a very short period of time.

NOIDPREFIX

Many IRC networks use nickname registration services. I don't have a problem with nickname registration services as they have their benefits and disadvantages. However, freenode will soon be implementing a policy, which will mean that people will not only be able to register a nick they want, but by doing so, all variants of it are automatically registered to them. This means if you register the nickname 'foo', you also have the exclusive right to own nicknames with 'foo' in them. For example, and not limited to.

foo foo_ foo` foo foo-1 [foo] foo|ATHOME foo[WORK]

People can say "this will help, because I then i don't have to register each of those nicknames", but their is a major problem with this.

Say you wanted the nickname 'Foo_Fighter', well, you could not have it, because someone, in this case, already owns the nickname 'foo'. Why? Well because 'foo' is registered to someone, and 'Foo_Fighter' is a variant of 'foo'. Sure, he could use 'FooFighter', but that may already be taken.

A more problematic example, is one expressed by The_Tick (I think you can see already what his problem is going to be).

The_Tick also makes a good point about nick changes being used to indicate if you are away or not. Something again, that Traditional IRC Users have complained about before.

I know a number of people who are going to have similar problems, and would prefer to use the nicknames they already have for years, then having to pick another one. It would be easier in these cases for us to use elsewhere, simply because no other network has problems of such a scale, other than freenode.

I could add more to this, but i suggest instead that you complain to policy@freenode.net, especially if you use the network, to complain about these changes.

You can see the full policy draft on the freenode site.

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Do the fax

28th July, 2005     Rants,

I decided finally, that I should find a use for the phone line that isn't being used here. My decision in the end was to use my old external 56k modem, and hook it up to a BSD box, and run a fax daemon to email and vice-versa type of gateway for when i might need to receive (and possibly one day send) a fax.

So I started by looking for a decent fax daemon program for linux, and i stumbled across Hylafax, which seems to look like it could do the job sitting on it's hands.

Great, I thought...

Problems arose after installing it, to realise that the number of configuration options that exist to get it working are extreme. It required more time setting it up, then it would have taken me to run the faxes to people.

So after 30 minutes of getting nowhere, i gave up (for now). It's been a long day, and this obviously was not a task for a day like today. One day I might decide to finally do something with that phone line again, but by then, I hope faxes are dead.

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