The Telarah Times

Running tar for Windows, using this command:

c:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\tar.exe -xzvf filename.tar.gz

gives the following error

c:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\tar.exe: Cannot fork: Function not implemented
c:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\tar.exe: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

On windows it doesn’t seem to call gzip automatically.

Therefore:
You need to install GZIP for Windows

And then run a command similar to what follows:

"c:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\gzip.exe" -d -c "filename.tar.gz" | "c:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\tar.exe" -x

If you are an IT person and you are employed by a Manufacturing company, it is probable that your IT umbrella covers at least some sort of control system/s.

Controls Systems or SCADA, as they are called in the industry frequently have components installed in hostile environments (think steam and heat).

Perhaps you have a remote server computer sitting comfortably in an environmentally controlled room that needs to be networked into a PLC which is housed in a stainless steel cabinet in the middle of a paddock. Putting standard network kit into a steel cabinet and expecting it stay under 40°C is not realistic when typical daytime temperatures in Australia can be 45°C. After a short while your standard network switch will start to drop packets and be totally cooked a short while later.

Enter Industrial Ethernet switches.

I recently purchased a couple of Westermo Fibre-Convertor / Ethernet switches that are rated to around 75°C. These stand up way better than an office only Linksys ‘puck’ style switch. Another brand that a supplier recently quoted me on was Moxa. I haven’t used them yet but it doesn’t hurt to have a few options.

For Industrial ethernet you need a DIN rail and a 24V DC power supply, but that is usually available in the cabinet when you are dealing with control systems.

Industrial strength isn’t cheap but in a manufacturing environment reliability pays for itself.

Problems:
Logging into VMWare Server 2.0.2 using https fails.
Trying to create a VM fails several times.
Trying to run VMWare Remote Console fails complaining about timing out because it can’t get a session ticket. (sadly I didn’t get the exact text of the error)

Suspected Cause
Running Firefox 3.6.x

Resolution
Go back to the Ubuntu supplied version of FF. which as of this post is 3.5.8
Remove the .mozilla directory in your home ( mv ~/.mozilla ~/mozilla.old )
Remove any shortcuts to your updated version of FF.
Set the Ubuntu supplied version of FF to the default using Edit ==> Preferences ==> Advanced ==> Check Now.

VMWare Remote Console and the buggy behaviour of the VMWare Infrastructure WebAccess should now be resolved.

Update: Just got the same problem as above on Windows XP SP3 client running Firefox 3.6. Attempting to access VMWare Remote Console the error text is:

“Cannot access virtual machine console. The request timed out.”
“The attempt to acquire a valid session ticket for “My VM” took longer than expected. If this problem persists, contact your system administrator.”

A completely useless factoid I just discovered.

I used the Windows character map to copy and paste a degree symbol (°) into my PC SMS application and sent it to my mobile phone. What arrived at my phone was the letters “Ao”.

So for those of you wondering, you can’t send a degree symbol via SMS.

Next time I will have say 2 deg not 2°

And another thing. The HTML entity for a degree sign is °

If you like electronic gizmo’s and live in the Lower Hunter Valley Jaycar electronics has opened a store in Maitland

I’m noticing an increasing number of comments that say something like “Hey Great Post”.

While everyone likes to be praised, I am coming to the conclusion that some of these posts aren’t really praise, but merely self-serving flattery. Why? Because in the process of the commenter telling me what a great post I have done, they never seem to fail to place a URL back to a commercial product website.

Clever…(finger taps side of nose), but I think I am catching on.

Akismet (awesome wordpress plugin) does a great job of culling most of the comment SPAM but sometimes it misses these innocuous posts.

However I am tightening my definition of an acceptable comment post:

• It must have content that displays a good knowledge of the post it is attached to.
  e.g. “I loved this post especially the part where you mentioned that the best approach is placing some sort of barrier between you and the food”… as opposed to “I love this post. Good work! Keep it up”.
• If I Google a comment and it comes up at other sites it’s a goner
• Likewise the author email and website. If you are just into commenting to get a Google booster shot then it get’s deleted, unless it fulfills my comment caveats as posted here
• Unless you contribute to the value of my blog post with further information, adding to the knowledge of the post and thereby increasing the value of the post, then I am unlikely to allow a comment that has a URL pointing back to a commercial website.
  ( I am aware we all want an SEO leg-up but hey if I feel the comment reduces the value of my Technology & Things Blog then I won’t accept it )
• Drivel can be published in many other places on the internet
• I don’t believe in Evolution, so I’m unlikely to submit my Blog to hundreds of poor comments believing that somehow a good one will come crawling out of the slime of mediocrity. Ubuntu users especially know the pain of sifting through a help forum and having to read a dozen “Me too” posts before someone adds something helpful.
• Good, solid, well thought out comments, even ones containing criticism stay
• I blog to learn, and blog to retain that learning. Teach me something in a comment!
• I don’t always get the details right. Help me straighten them out and the comment stays
• English has never rightly been punctuated with crudity & swear words. Neither will my blog
• Humour is always appreciated. Entertain and the comment stays
• You can definately tell me about Speling errors & tiepo’s.

I don’t generally do what I call opinion blogging (that’s what newspaper columnists and talk back radio hosts are paid to do). However this is my opinion on blog comments. Enjoy!

After installing the Telstra Turbo Card Manager and plugging in the MF332. It should just plug and play install and you are away.

Problem:
However today I found that most of the components are successfully identified and installed but the “ZTE Diagnostics Interface” is identified for a moment and it trys to install but then a dialog titled “Found New Hardware Wizard” comes up with this:

Cannot Install this Hardware

There was a problem installing this hardware:
          Data Interface

An error occurred during the installation of the device
Access is denied

In attempt to work around the “Access Denied” error I logged off my domain account and back on with the local Administrator account and still no joy.

This was on Windows XP Professional SP3 with all patches as at 1/2/2010.

The Fix:
Ran Sysinternals Filemon and Regmon

The results of Filemon showed no ACCESS DENIED’s on the filesystem

But while running Regmon it came up with an ACCESS DENIED by process rundll32.exe (the driver installation process) on HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

Using regedit I changed the permissons from Admistrator only and added SYSTEM to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and it’s children

Then using Device Manager removed the not installed “Data Interface” and then “scanned for hardware changes” and the New Hardware Wizard completed successfully.

Conclusion
The older an installed OS get’s the more chance there is that an installation routine will do something odd to the permissions of the registry.

Tools like filemon and regmon let you see where the “Access Denied” errors are occurring in the file system or registry respectively and then perform remedial action and hopefully (it doesn’t always work) effect a repair.

My Wife and I are putting an extension on our Weatherboard House. The extension is supported by 350×350mm brick piers with Gal Threaded rod running up through the centre of the piers to hold down the bearers. This setup requires a penetration through the Ant-cap (see image below). In the old days you would close the hole using solder. However these days there is a product named Termite Proof Silicone.

I was looking for Termite Proof Silicone and couldn’t source it from two of my local Hardware Stores. It turns out that it is available at Saddingtons.

Pier Diagram

Pier

While researching for the piers I found a fantastic brick laying resource Brickwork.net.au at the time of this post they are in the process of moving most of their content to a wiki. I was interested in creating Piers and setting up profiles. Brickwork.net.au has many photos making the concepts very easy to understand. If you are an Owner-builder these types of resources are invaluable.

Just looking at Geany… Chose File ==> New ==> From Template and chose Latex..

And Geany has Latex command completion. So all you need to do is start typing \sec and it brings up a pick list of options….

Cool.

Just purchased a cheap-as-chips ($89AUD) Telstra T106 pre-paid phone made by http://www.zte.com.au.

On the pro side:

• I find it a little more ergonomic but less refined mechanically than the Nokia 6120C
• It has a built in stop-watch a feature missing from my previous Nokia 6120C.
• The buttons are nicely raised allowing a little easier use by people with big hands
• The calculator makes a lot more sense to use than the Nokia 6120C

On the con side:

It doesn’t come with a Micro SD card. (Canabalize your old phone it may have one).

You can switch the phone off accidentally because the hangup button also powers the phone off.

The bundled PC application JoinMe looks like it has been programmed so ZTE can say that they have a feature on a sales brochure, but on use it’s so buggy as to be almost unuseable. Upgrading from the standard Bundled Telstra JoinMe software to the ZTE download doesn’t help.

Some of the weirdness:
The validation on a Contact in JoinMe makes the Mobile Phone Number Mandatory. So the programmer seems to have assumed you only every make mobile to mobile calls… I worked around this by copying the fixed number to the mobile field and if that wasn’t available just inserting 0

When attempting to Synch with Outlook 2003 it allowed 34 of my 500+ contacts and then JoinMe Crashed. I think the cause was that Outlook allows many number formats (e.g. (02) 5555 5555, 6841-7651 etc) but JoinMe is _very_ picky (see below for my work-a-round)

When I attempted an Outlook Synch the Items that did go accross were automatically assigned to the “Family” category, however unless I have been severely misled about my paternity, I don’t think the ATO is a member of my family.

When Attempting to export from Outlook and synching using CSV I observed that phone numbers with spaces e.g. 0428 555 666 fail but numbers without spaces e.g. 0428555666 work. Note: If you use Microsoft Excel to edit your CSV removing the spaces in phone numbers can cause a problem because Excel then recognizes it as a number and strips leading zeros, making the number incorrect.

To get the correct Import format for JoinMe I exported a single existing contact as CSV from JoinMe

In the end I got most of my Contacts over to my phone but had to manually adjust all the phone numbers to allow it. Which is naff.

Conclusion: JoinMe software isn’t ready for use in a business environment.