Author Archives: daniel

iPod progress

Well the response when plugging the iPod into my computer at work was the same as that at home: nothing. It appears something caused the battery to stop working.

So I rang up Apple support, and after they had me attempt resetting it again, put me on hold. When the guy came back he proclaimed it to be a battery problem, and said it would need servicing. Sigh. He then gave me the URL for requesting service. I clicked through to this, only to find their server down, returning a 500 error. Terrific, this gets better and better!

Apple support web site error

A couple of hours later it was working. It leads you through various disclaimers including having you read a long list of terms and conditions in a small font. (Why do they put it in a small font? It’s a web page fer chrissake – it doesn’t use any more paper or bytes to be in a normal-sized font.)

I tapped in all my details and ended up with a form to print and take with the iPod to the post office. There the bloke scanned off the form, and gave me a PostPak and bubblewrap to put it in, and sent it off, postage-free.

Unlike when you get a battery replacement, apparently they will actually fix your iPod, rather than sending you a replacement one. And the bloke said it may take up to 14 days… which is a helluva lot better than some repair places.

So now, I wait. Sigh.

iPod woes

I don’t smegging believe it. I’ve had the thing less than a day and it’s playing up.

Yesterday during a spare moment at work, I set up iTunes on my work PC. All okay, set up the iPod, copied a dozen songs onto it, all good.

Took it home and tried to set iTunes up on my home PC. When it came to plug the iPod in, it wouldn’t play ball. The small print says it needs a high-power USB2.0 port… which to be honest I’m not sure my computer has. I’ll be looking into that.

But anyway, at this point the iPod stopped working. It now only does anything if it’s plugged into the mains, through the dock or directly. The battery indicator says it’s charged, and it plays merrily, until it’s plugged in. I’ve tried resetting it a couple of times, which it’ll do if it’s plugged in, but otherwise, nothing, nada, zilch.

You smegging what?!?

Assuming it’ll respond to the work computer again, I’ll do a full factory restore on it, and/or try refreshing its software. If that doesn’t work, however, I’ll not be very bloody happy. (I’m not particularly ecstatic right now, to be honest.)

iPod bargains

A standard 20Gb iPod sells for A$439 retail.

40Gb iPods are being discontinued, but if you can find one, you’re likely to pay around A$479. Which given it comes with a dock that the 20Gb, makes it a bargain.

I just found one for $449 at ht.com.au, which makes it an utterly completely irresistable bargain. So I bought it.

Moving WordPress to a new server

I moved my diary WordPress installation yesterday from an old WP1.22 installation to a brand new shiny WP1.5 database and URL. Here are the steps, in summary:

  1. We don’t want to lose any comments so get into phpMyAdmin and shut down comments/trackbacks on the old blog, by running this SQL:
    UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status = 'closed', ping_status = 'closed'
  2. Then export the database, with Complete Data Inserts turned on. Get the dump down into a text file (there’s probably an automatic way, but I just copy/pasted into my preferred editor — Ultraedit)
  3. Do whatever replacements are needed on the data. I replaced all the toxiccustard.com/diary URLs with danielbowen.com ones, for instance. Be sure to change the setting in wp_options that specifies the site (WP) URL, ‘cos you won’t be able to logon if you don’t — the logon code will throw you over to the old blog. There’s another setting called Blog address which will also need changing if you’re coming off WP1.5.
  4. My export seemed to add extraneous escape characters in odd places. For instance a quote "e; in the database came out with two backslashes in front of it. I did some replacing to remove "e; with "e; — and similarly with single quotes, they all need only one
  5. Create the new database, with whatever database user WP will be using, and plug the details into your wp-config.php
  6. Run the export SQL into the new database, by copy/pasting into myPhpAdmin. I did it table-by-table so I could catch and correct any problems easily. I was especially wary of the wp_posts table, which had almost 700 rows, most with very long data. But as it turns out it all went very smoothly, with no problems whatsoever.
  7. Time to upload all the WP files into the new web server. Because I was moving from WP1.22 to 1.5, there were some steps to follow first for migrating the old template. All pretty straightforward really. Then run the WP wp-admin/upgrade.php to make sure the tables are all up to date with the latest design.
  8. Log onto WordPress and go through the config screens to make sure it’s all okay. Things to watch out for include the timezone (if different on the new server), setting your preferred template, activating any plugins you want, and setting the new file upload directory (on which you’ll need to set permissions).
  9. Check out the Permalinks. Set it up, then copy what it tells you to your .htaccess file. (The WP1.5 version wouldn’t actually work for me. For now I’m still using the WP1.2 version until I figure it out.)
  10. Check how the blog looks to the outside world. Post a test post and comment, just to check it all works. If not, go back and correct where applicable.
  11. Re-enable (selected) comments on the new blog:
    UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status = 'open', ping_status = 'open'
  12. Insert an .htaccess redirect on the old site to point people over to the new:
    Redirect /olddirectory http://yoursite.com/newdirectory/

And presto! Done!

(Okay, I had some further hassles with some old HTML and broken image links mixing it up with WordPress, but that’s my problem, not yours!)

The perils of USB drives

My 3 month old USB drive has gone kaput, and just when I’d started to get used to it, and finding it really useful. It’s one of those Imation swivel ones, and had been fine until last week, when I plugged it into a PC that had a loose keyboard plug. Whether that was a factor or not I don’t know, but random keystrokes and beeps started emanating from the computer, until I figured out what had gone wrong. The drive hasn’t worked since then. Nothing happens when I plug it in, not into my home or work computers.

Imation’s web site is next to useless. They’ll be getting a call on their support line from me as soon as I get the chance. It’s still under warranty, so they should replace it.

Of course, those friends of mine who wondered why I bothered to buy a name-brand drive may well have been vindicated.

Me, I’m wondering if I should forget USB drives and just buy that iPod I’m covetting.

Update Tuesday 7am. Imation said find the receipt and take it back to place of purchase for a replacement.

Inaccuracies reading Excel via ADO

Yesterday’s discovery with reading Excel via ADO and the ODBC Text Driver: numeric values may be wrong if it takes a guess that the column contains date fields.

The geeky detail (found in VB6SP5, Excel 2003, ADO 2.7, Jet Provider 4.0):

The text driver looks at the first few lines (configurable via the MaxScanRows setting or the Rows To Scan field in the DSN configuration box) to figure out what sort of data it is dealing with in each column. If there are numbers, it assumes the columns are numbers.

But if it sees dates, and sees no other data in the next few rows, then it assumes all the data in those columns are dates. If it gets further down to rows containing actual numbers, it still thinks it’s reading dates, and when it tries to convert the number to a date and back again, it causes a rounding error and ends up adding 1 to the final number.

In my case, the solution was to get the spreadsheets to contain zeroes (quite valid for the data being loaded) in the first few rows, instead of blanks. A little tricky, but it remains a good method for getting data out of Excel.

How to get rid of the damn change tracking in MS Word

MS Word's change trackingI don’t like Word’s change tracking. Never have. I suppose it’s useful in some circumstances, but almost every document I’ve come across that had it turned on proved it to be a symptom of self-importance on the part of the author.

Maybe my dislike of it is partially fuelled by the fact that I don’t know how to work it properly. It’s irritating to open a document and have to continually turn off the View Markup just to hide all the colourful lines and balloons that otherwise display. And it bloody turns itself back on every time you open the document again.

The way to permanently hide it all is to approve all the changes, something that can apparently only be done by showing the Reviewer toolbar. And my problem is that on the occasions I encounter markup all over the place and I want to get rid of it, I can never remember how it’s done.

This article goes into plenty of detail. But in summary:

  • View / Toolbars / Reviewing: turn it on
  • On the toolbar look for tick icon (Accept change)
  • On its dropdown, choose Accept All Changes In Document

There, finally got rid of the bastards.

Adventures in PSU land

Well yesterday I got a PSU from Digiworld in LaTrobe Street. 400W ATX for $79. Took it home and discovered it didn’t fit in the case. No good. I did a little research on the net and found the Gateway page documenting the dead power supply I have. The page offers the following chilling comment: “This power supply is not backwards compatible with any power supply.”

I took the bought one back into the shop this morning, along with the corpse of its mutant cousin. A couple of guys in the shop concluded what I already suspected: it was a Gateway custom job. An evolutionary dead-end. They’d taken some kind of smaller version of an ATX PSU and turned it sideways. And thanks to Gateway no longer trading in Australia, the chances of finding another one are minimal.

Digiworld were happy to give me a refund (despite their notices up claiming they would only issue credit notes — surely contradicting statutory requirements), and to wish me good luck.

I tried the mob that Gateway left holding the fort. Despite their web site saying they stock parts, when I rang them up they said they don’t any more.

D’oh.

So I have an otherwise fine five year-old computer. Even if I upgraded, it would have been nice to keep it for the kids. I’ll take a quick look on eBay and the other secondhand outlets, but it seems the best I can do is strip it for parts (particularly the hard drive, which has all my useful stuff on it) and buy a new one.

Lesson for the day: When buying a PC, make sure it uses standard spec parts. The guy in the shop reckons Dell does this customised mutant fiddling too.

UPDATE 21:30. The most important thing – the hard drive from the dead PC – has been transferred over. I’ll have to do a little fiddling to get things like Outlook running again, but at least the data is intact. The data, after all, is the most valuable thing. And hey, the kids are rapt at the prospect of buying a shiny new PC.