I went on holiday for a few days last week and as is really quite typical, it was during this holiday that my server decided to fail.

What made this particularly annoying was I had intended to use my server as remote storage for my photographs. Considering the holiday was my first abroad since 1998, I felt some form of backup for photographs would be important. That plan had to be abandoned when I could no longer gain access on Tuesday 3 August.

As far as I can establish, a power failure of an unknown magnitude occurred at some point on Tuesday. When I came home, I discovered that the Sky box had reset which can happen with the smallest glitches. Normally after a failure, the computer restarts and all is well. However the server had no power when I returned home in the early hours of Thursday morning. I switched the machine on and ignored the numerous beeps emitted by the PC speaker being too tired to acknowledge them.

Realising the next day that I still could not access the server, I took the monitor from my normal machine, connected it to the server along with a spare keyboard and discovered that the CMOS had reset to its defaults. I checked over the BIOS settings and all seeming well, booted the server. What I didn't notice however was that there was no mention on bootup of the SATA to IDE controller to which my data drive was connected. When I noticed a few failure messages on start, I tried to access the data drive but was unsuccessful.

Panic started to set in at this point. Had I lost nearly 1TB of data? I took the drive out of the server and plugged it into my more modern general use machine. I could feel and hear the hum of the drive spinning and the BIOS detected it. Thank goodness, it seemed to be intact.

I then did a little experiment, powering the drive from my general machine, but connecting the drive to the server's SATA controller. Still the server did not recognise it. That led me to deduce that the onboard SATA controller on my server had failed.

So that left me with a dilemma. How do I get this drive reconnected to the server? Could I buy a new controller card? I did some research but the cheaper cards did not appear to be reliable with Linux. More expensive cards were out of my price range. So the alternative was to run the data drive as an external USB drive. I purchased an enclosure suitable for a 3.5" SATA drive and that arrived today.

I was very impressed to find that on connecting the drive to the server via USB, it was instantly detected and mounted at the correct point meaning everything instantly came back to life! Panic over!

Fortunately I had run a partial backup of this drive so if it had failed, I wouldn't have lost everything. Unfortunately though I don't have enough storage space to do a full backup of nearly 1TB. This scare has led me to realise I really need to get this sorted as soon as possible. I'll probably look at a solution to backup up to 2TB of data considering I am now recording HD home videos which consume a lot of space. I think 1TB of space will be consumed reasonably quickly.

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Tags: computers, this website

It seems I've somehow managed to break images on this site. Goodness knows how mind you.

Until I figure it out, I've disabled the Photography section and removed images from blog posts. I'll put them back when the mystery is solved.

What's most strange is that my recent coding has had nothing to do with images. I did wonder if I'd damaged some of my own PHP functions but nothing has jumped out at me so far.

It is nearly midnight though, so maybe I'll solve it with a fresh head tomorrow.

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On 1 April 2010, Ordnance Survey opened up a lot of it's data including a cut-down version of Code-Point - a database of UK postcodes.

Since this data is available free of charge, and has a licence aligned to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence; I decided to download the data and incorporate it into an SQL table for use on this website.

I've now completed the import of the data (1,696,088 records not including code definitions) and have created a webpage which can be used to query this information. A user can input a postcode and have all open data which I have available displayed.

Not only that, but I have also been learning about converting geographical data in to different systems. The Code-Point data provides co-ordinates in the British Coordinate System of six-figure eastings and northings. My new page converts this data into latitude/longitude, National Grid Reference, Worked All Britain (WAB) square and Maidenhead Grid Locator. By having latitude/longitude data, a Google Map can also display a marker showing where a postcode is.

Now I've got a bit of a grasp on how to convert data, I hope to extend the page to accept input of other forms of geographic data and have it convert in the same way. For now though, I'll leave it at postcode only.

There's nothing particularly unique about this. Many sites across the internet allow postcode searches and data conversion. This was essentially a two day project which I decided to do simply because it costs nothing but server space (over 150MiB), I fancied doing some coding and I find this information useful from time-to-time as part of my amateur radio hobby. If anyone else finds this information useful then that is a bonus.

Find the link in the navigation menu, above.

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Tags: this website, amateur radio

As soon as I posted my last message about the revamp, I decided to add a couple more features.

Firstly, I finally decided to implement an RSS feed of the blog. This is now available through the RSS icon beneath each blog entry. I'll probably develop this further so that a feed of each tag is available - effectively creating lots of mini blogs.

Secondly, I have also added a few further icons beneath each blog entry to allow bookmarking and sharing through some popular sites. I'll add to these as time goes on with other sites too.

Now I really do think that's it for now.

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Tags: this website

Today, after months of coding (on-and-off), I have launced version 8 of my website. The old site was only a little more than a year old, but I was already bored of it so a fresh new look was needed. More than that though, new features have been added, bringing it up-to-date. Here's a list of what's changed, been removed and been added:

1. No more tables. That's it - they're gone completely (at last)!

2. That means a full CSS controlled page layout.

3. The 10 latest blog entries are available in full on the front page - not just the first paragraphs of these entries

4. Javascript is used to show/hide comments and additional information within the blog page meaning it doesn't need to be reloaded when these links are clicked.

5. Nicer URLs e.g., blog URLs are now made up of their date and title rather than a reference number. However, old reference number URLs do still work.

6. Better compliance with HTML standards. Most pages will now validate as HTML 4.01 Transitional. A few old blog entries may still show small errors but all new entries should be compliant since I am not permitting HTML within entries anymore (I have a BBCode style implementation for minor formatting like this list).

7. The 'About' section is now in blog entries making the section easier to update and including it in daily backups.

8. A new section: 'Microblog' is now available, pulling data from my Identi.ca RSS feed. This could potentially also include a Twitter feed should I start using that separately from Identi.ca.

9. The way browsing is done within the Music Library has changed. Users must select the letter of the artist being looked for from a drop down list. Javascript functionality allows users to drill down through listed artists, to their albums and then tracks within that album without reloading the page. Track information is displayed in a popup window and contains more detail than before.

10. The map icons have been changed to transparent crosshair icons. Only visited locations are now on show

11. When browsing links, more information about that link can be displayed by clicking on the expand button. This may be developed further to include links to blog entries referencing that link.

12. The Contact form is available on every page. Initially hidden, it will become visible upon clicking the 'Contact' link thanks to Javascript.

13. Quick links to other websites where I have a presence are available under the 'Elsewhere On The Web' link

14. The Search function has been dramatically improved; searching more areas of the site. All results are put into a temporary database table allowing different orders (e.g., order by published date descending or result type ascending). The Music Library can also be searched by artist, album, track, tag, year or lyrics.

15. Small graphics are used to enhance the visual appearance such as the search field and button, the background of page headers, other buttons.

16. The Photography and Amateur Radio sections have been removed in preparation for them getting their own sites.

I think that's a pretty comprehensive list. I do believe it's a big step forward for my little site which has also had a small rebrand - it's called Ben Gamblin Central now, instead of Ben Gamblin Online. The idea being that all of my profiles around the internet link back here and vice-versa. Things aren't completely finished. I want to develop the Microblog section so that data is permanently saved in the database rather than just what is available on the RSS feed being shown. New sub-sites will be developed to bring back the Photography and Amateur Radio sections too.

The question now is: will I still like this version of the site in a year's time, or will I change it again?

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Tags: this website

Eagle-eyed readers may have noted about 5 categories on the right side of the home page at www.bengamblin.com over the last few weeks. These were the precursors to a new categorising system that I have setup designed.

The categorisation of all blog entries should make those older entries a lot easier to find. It will also be a lot easier to find entries that are related to others, although maybe not directly related so as to be linked within the blog itself.

I hope that over the next few days or weeks I will finish going through each entry adding a category. So far I have done all of this year's entries plus the entries for January 2004 - August 2004. Whilst doing this I have also started adding titles to the older entries that don't have them.

I have this idea in the back of my head that I could add tick boxes to the category headings so that multiple categories can be displayed together. I also want to add the categories to the blog entries themselves (both within the entry and on the main screen).

An ultimate aim would be to get RSS feeds setup for each of the categories. I've very much aware that a lot of my entries are of no interest to most people. However according to my web stats, Linux blog entries seem to be quite popular. To have an RSS feed devoted to this category would give the illusion of a blog devoted to that category, filtering out entries that are of no interest.

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I've just completed, and launched, the latest revamp of my site. Since it hadn't really changed much since January 2007, I decided it was looking a bit tired and needed a spring clean.

The style retains a lot of similar features from the old one: the same green for the colour scheme, navigation bar at the top, similar options in that navigation bar, and a split page format, although it's not a 50-50 split this time.

Here's a run down of exactly what has changed:

• Pages are now in a fixed width format.

• There is a tidier navigation bar, including "Contact" which used to be in the footer.

• The page split is now 75%-25% with the larger left side used for main content, and the smaller right side used for extra information or navigation options.

• The Blog page has been dropped. The last 10 entries are visible on the home page, with page number jumpers allowing readers to browse through older entries.

• A standardised date/time format has been introduced across pages where this information is required.

• A new 'About Me' page has been added, taking this information away from the home page.

• The Music Library doesn't load a list of all songs, but presents users with an alphabetical index. This allows for quicker page loading times.

• Photo Albums have had a complete overhaul, with thumbnails running along the top of the page, with the selected image visible below preventing the need to go back and forth between thumbnails and images. Current page settings are remembered when changing thumbnails, pages or years.

• Images are now watermarked with my details.

• The map only has two types of icons - places visited, and places where photographs have been taken. The latter icon will show 3 thumbnails of the photograph tagged with those co-ordinates. Albums can be views showing all photographs tagged with those co-ordinates.

• The File Store has been renamed to File Repository. The categories (now called folders) are permanently visible on the right of this page.

• The links page no longer lists all links in one page. The user must select a category from the list of the available categories down the right side of the page. The layout of the links has changed slightly with the address now being visible

• The Contact page has been tidied up. The Captcha image is now larger and should be easier to read. Errors in submission create a nicer error page. The terms and conditions are available next to the form. These changes also apply to the Blog comments submission form.

• An improved search is always available at the top right of any page. Search will check blog entries, photographs, file repository and external links. The operators AND, OR are both available as is the use of double quotes to specify a phrase.

• Page addresses no longer use query strings and now appear much tidier (e.g. blog.php?id=123 is now /blog/123/). This should be more friendly for search engines and more secure.

There are still things that I would like to build on. Links for 'previous entry' and 'next entry' in the blog would be useful. These used to exist but didn't work for a long time so for the time being they have been removed. I also want to develop the search aspect to include the music library and the operator NOT.

In spite of those planned changes, I think that 2 months of coding has paid-off and the site is looking better for it.

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I rebuilt my server a few days ago...well the software side of it anyway. The machine was running Ubuntu Edgy Eft (6.10) Desktop edition since it used to be my main use PC until I recommisioned it. The trouble with that version of Ubuntu is simple - support ends this month.

So I had a bit of a dilemma over what to replace it with. I could wait a couple of weeks and install the latest LTS (Long Term Support) version codenamed "Hardy Heron" (8.04) or install the older LTS "Dapper Drake" (6.06). I opted for the latter due to it still being supported until 2011 and that it should have less flaws than the latest release.

So after plenty of backing up, I did a fresh install of the Server edition of Ubuntu. This means there's no GUI and any associated applications to slow the machine down. It's a text only machine. For anyone who's not familiar with Linux, the screen looks like what DOS looked like back in the day (it's better than DOS though).

As part of this rebuild, I decided to install the website log analyser 'AWStats' so I can keep a closer eye on what's going on and the statistics from the last 5 days are interesting - well to me at least.

The summary is broken down into various sections, and three of these intrigue me the most - the operating system of the visitor, the web browser and any search strings used to find my site.

Starting with the operating systems, there's the usual suspects present - Windows XP at the top of the list, followed by Windows NT, ME and Vista. Win 98 and 95 both come in higher than Windows 2000 and at the bottom of the list as far as Windows is concerned is Windows 3.xx with 4 hits. There's also hits from visitors running various Linux distributions, Mac OS, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris and RISC OS.

As for the browsers, Internet Explorer tops the list. Versions 6 and 7 are at the top and version 5 has a few hits too, but so does version 2.0, 3.02 and 4.01. The earliest Firefox version shown is 0.10 and Netscape shows a visitor with version 0.6.

I know that these stats can be forged by users simply changing the contents of their browser's UserAgent string but if they are accurate I'd love to know who is still running these ancient version of software and what brought them my way. In the off-chance that such a person is reading this, please do leave a comment saying hi.

The final part of the statistics that I'm interested in is the search strings. I'm quite pleased to find that my blog entries are turning up on Google and that people are looking at them in response to a search. Such search strings include:

• the bitter end romford

• flac iaudio 7 problems

• bbc science moon mining

• icdl exam from london

• new wimbledon theatre legroom

• oxjam bitter end

• cutty sark restoration timetable

I was particularly pleased with the New Wimbledon Theatre one. Maybe it was someone who, like me, has restricted leg movement and needs a bit of legroom when going to the theatre. Maybe that blog entry reassured that person that the New Wimbledon was good in that regard. I can only speculate, but if that person comes back and reads this, do say hi!

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Tags: microsoft windows, this website

The new season of 24 started last night on Sky One with a double bill. If you haven't seen it yet, be aware that the next sentance may spoil it for you.

It didn't take long to get going with David Palmer and Michelle Dessler being killed off in the first 15 minutes, and Tony Almeda in a critical condition! I reckon it has to rate as one of the best starts to a series I've ever seen.

It's the first time I've watched 24 on the TV. Normally I watch them on DVD (Kate has bought all of the first four seasons). There are two bad points about seeing them on TV. Number one is the adverts, although they do space the episodes out to make them nearer to the real time that they are meant to be. Number two is having to wait a whole week for the next episode. I want to see what happens now!!! (By the way that is not an invitation for those who have already seen the next few episodes to email me and spoil it.)

More work has been going on with my website behind the scenes. It's now directly accessible from bengamblin.com and bengamblin.co.uk as opposed to those address simply redirecting to bengamblin.org.uk.
I've also taken out the part of the url containing /php/ to make individual pages slightly easier to remember if needed.
I've also got a customised 404 error page so people arriving at the site from an invalid search engine link can still navigate around, and I've learnt how to password protect certain areas so my admin section is more secure than before.

I still need to work on getting the images back onto the site and reinstating the Ben On The Radio section. Both of these I've been putting off for no particular reason.

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Tags: television, this website

The ADSL has returned!

I was right. I didn't get it back on Monday, but today is better than I expected. I spoke to Freeola who said they needed to get on to BT to run various tests and that it could take 3-5 days. This was last night at about 7pm. The signal had actually reappeared by 4:55am (the time of first access to my website).

Wish I knew what went wrong though. I can't imagine BT did any repairs that early in the morning.

It's was Kate and my fourth anniversary yesterday so we went out for dinner to "Back In Time" - an american themed restaurant serving steaks, burgers etc. The food was very nice. I had soup of the day to start - potato and leak which was nicer than it looked since it had very large lumps of potato which I'm not used to. For the main course I had a steak with curly chips, fried onions and salad, and I finished my meal off with a nice large Cappuchino.

The only problem with the restaurant was in the first 5 minutes of our visit. The stupid bartender (who has little idea of customer relations in my opinion and is a little hyperactive) decided it was illegal to serve soft drinks at the bar to be paid for there and then in cash. So I had to summon the manager and explain that there is no law against selling soft drinks and that it only applies to alcoholic drinks. The manager understood that, but the bartender bloke didn't and threw some off hand comment my way.

Twit.

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Tags: broadband, this website, it's my life