Part 2 Complete

I have finished part 2 of my network rebuild. The FTP server is in the data case with the UPS and network switch. The router I have left in its place on the wall as it is Wi-Fi and covers the whole inside of the house. To cover the garden and workshop I have added a Wireless Access Point in a window overlooking the garden so I can take a laptop down to the workshop and Jackie can sit on the swing in the shade and do her comps. All that is left of part 2 to do now is to tidy up the cable runs around the room.

I did consider going wireless for my network but when I did a wireless network survey, I found 12 other networks 8 of which had no encryption at all. This is a lethal combination so instead I have plumped for a wired network in the office and lounge and a switchable Wi-Fi one for laptop use elsewhere. That way I have wireless switched off line unless someone is using a laptop. I have also renamed my network so it doesn't advertise it is mine at Omega Cottage (All the others in the area are the default ones that the router was set to - I will leave it to your imagination how easy they are to hack into).

I have also experimented with using the 240v mains to carry the lounge part of the network. It works just fine but I don't know how secure it is. I have looked on the web for any guidance but can only find speculation - not hard evidence. I will have to ask one of my neighbours if I can plug a module in and see if I can login from there.

The next stage in the rebuild was to be increasing the capacity of my FTP server to a 2 Tb Raid 1 Array. However my supplier is having problems getting new stock. I suspect that the item I want is now unobtainable and so I will have to ask for my money back.

Gains and Pains

A week full of contrasts. In the early part of the week I had a face to face meeting with one of my clients who I had only previously spoken to on the phone. We had a very productive few hours together and we both found lots of things to do to improve and enhance his web site.


In contrast, the new loo has a flaw. In hot weather the heat gets trapped above the solid ceiling and below the translucent roof and rapidly builds up to over 100°. The Fire Safety Officer tells me this a fire risk and something needs to be done about it. However the council who ordered the loo and the contractors who built it are not concerned so it looks as if the sun will have to set the roof on fire before anyone does anything to make it safe.



Stage two of my network rebuild came next. I now have the data cabinet in place and the UPS installed (see photo). The new server is too big to go inside the datacase (my fault, I didn't realise just how many sizes of case there are or cabinets for that matter). However the new Switch fits a treat and I hope the FTP server will go in there too. I had to stop work at that point as both my hands swelled up like balloons as these cases are heavy and it was too painful to carry on so I have a bit of a lash up at the moment using one of my old switches to make the network cables long enough to reach the new cabinet.

To give my hands a rest I have found a new use for my old server. During the week several of the news letters I subscribe to were speculating that Linux would take the place of Windows as the operating system of choice for business. I can see why when you can download a version of Linux for free from the web and have a computer up and running complete with an Office suite of programs that is compatible with MS Office in less than half an hour. I have never had the time to explore Linux before so as I am supposed to be winding down to retirement [sic] and have more time on my hands [even more sic] so I thought I would download Linux and have a go.

To start me off I went to WHSmiths and bought a Linux magazine. It came with the Debian 5 version of Linux on the cover disk. I installed that and started to explore it but when I read more of the magazine, it suggested that Mandriva would be a better choice for the way I work so I wiped Debian, downloaded Mandriva 2009 and installed it. All in all including the 3.6 Gb download it took me just under an hour to have a working Mandriva Linux computer. I haven't had time to go any further yet so watch this space to see how I get on.

Earlier this week I was helping a friend to download some drivers and install them. She told me that she hadn't managed to do that before so in case there are others who wonder how it is done (the computer magazines all assume you know how) I have written a short tutorial giving step by step instructions how to safely download and install drivers from the web. You will find it here Safe and Secure Downloads . If you think I need to change or add anything please let me know by using my contacts page , you can also use that page to ask me to write/find articles and tutorials about the problems you may be having or just things you would like to know.

My new file server is physically up and running but it took me a lot longer to adapt the hardware to fit in the new case than I had planned for so it is still running on Vista Business not MS Server. The new case is much quieter than the old one and, as I have used a new motherboard, the old server is still available for me to experiment with as I have never had much to do with any of Microsoft's Server applications.

The next stage in the rebuild is to move the FTP server and the network hub to the data case. That will be a slow job as it involves a fair amount of crawling about under desks and I am not very good at doing that these days.

Right on with this week. Two customers waiting for me to commission new bits of kit for them, JD needs to visit the optician for a new lens the hospital say she doesn't need more surgery on her left eye) and all the other routine day to day jobs to do. I am beginning to understand why my Dad used to say "I don't know how I found time to go to work", after he retired.

Talking of retirement, I have 23 days left till I officially retire. I'm not sure that all my long term customers are going to be happy about that but I am looking forward to slowing down as even with the help of the physio I am struggling to do what I need to do on a day to day basis.

I have a new project. Up to now I have always use home networking equipment in my study and around my home. However I recently added an FTP server to the mix and found that I need to run it 24/7 to cope with the night owls among the people I work with. Until recently, I shut down everything before I went to bed so that there was no risk of fire or infection when I was away from the keyboard. So how was I going to adapt my network to remain safe and infection free while I try to sleep?

My network is made up of - 2 windows PCs, a Mac, a web server that I use for testing, a file server, 2 laptops and a media centre plus any 'visiting' PCs or laptops. To run this I was using a Netgear ADSL wireless router and a collection of Netgear switches and Wireless access points powered by three UPSs. This network like most networks had not been planned in any way - it just grew as I felt the need or acquired kit.

When I installed the FTP server I realised that I needed to power only part of the network 24/7 so I swapped the UPS round so that the Router and the FTP server were on one UPS and the rest of the network on the other two. Now I can leave the FTP server running but shut down everything else.

I still wasn't happy with this so I aquired a Netgear 24 port Gigabyte switch that is rack mountable. That got rid of the collection of small switches I was using which, although silent, got quite hot by the end of day. The 24 port switch is cold to the touch but noisy due to the 40mm fans that are used to cool it. This lead me on to think about a cabinet to hold the switch and my two servers.

At the moment my file server is a large old fashioned server case that has so many fans (12) that it has to be tucked away in another room. To take its place I have bought a rack mountable 2U server case that will hold 3 HDDs and fit with my FTP server and the Switch in a 6U data cabinet. The idea is that this cabinet can be powered via one of the UPSs and in the mains wiring run I will fit a thermal switch to cut off the power if the temperature rises above a fixed level. That should help to make the setup fire proof.

I haven't explored the world of business servers before so what will happen next will be very interesting, I hope. This weekend's task is to physically build the new server, install the software and commission it. Watch this space to see how I get on.

I decided to try and refresh my web site this week as everyone was away on holiday. On my main computer I have two versions of Internet Explorer, Avant, Opera, Mozilla, Google Chrome and Safari. When I build a page I always check it in all of them as you wouldn't believe the mess the page can be in as the different browsers interpret the code differently.


I am using IE 8 on my main machine now and at last it seems Microsoft have at last brought out a browser that is standards compliant. Now when you change the pages style sheet you have a good idea of what will appear on the page and borders, margins and padding all display as they should. It is also good that when you then open the page in Mozilla or Opera the page is relatively unchanged.


However the same can not be said for IE7 or IE6. Looking at my site in IE7 showed all the margins and padding were slightly out of place. That was annoying but I could live with it. When I looked again in IE6 the whole page was corrupt with menus twice the width they should be and forms were moved right across the page (I was using the DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOM and CSS 2.1). I fiddled with the CSS and XHTML for a while then went to look at the Browser stats on W3C.
I was interested to read that IE6 has dropped away to less than 17% of Internet Browsers.

That means that 1 in 6 people can not see my page as I would wish. Is that a low enough number to ignore? What do you think? You can leave your vote by clicking on the Comments link at the bottom of this post. In the meantime I will carry on trying to find a way to make the code look the same in every one of the popular browsers.

The publisher I do occasional work for has managed to get some of the books off to the printer. We have missed the deadline for the major conferences but there are a lot of orders on the system for these books so it wasn't wasted effort. Due to all the holdups we have had to have a hard think about how to process a book from authors script to printer ready files. Hopefully the next book to go through the system will not have so many holdups along the way.

Holiday NBG

Can't take the holiday Jackie won as the hotel has no lift, steep steps up to it and nowhere to park the car. Oh well I would have been nice but someone will get to enjoy it.

Loo finished at last and it looks just fine, as you can see, Jackie has already claimed it to store things in. I just hope I can still get in there when I need to.

This week we are supposed to have the conservatory roof repaired but the weather isn't co-operating so it may have to wait. I must admit after all the upheaval of the loo I could do with a few days peace and quiet.

This week @ Omega Cottage

Two tentative enquiries this week for new web sites. Looks like I won't get bored in the coming weeks and months.


Neil has returned from Hong Kong and is full of ideas about what to add to his new site. That was helped when I found that PowerPoint presentations could be saved as web pages. They are rather large files so only run slowly if they are full of images but this week end I am going to investigate making the images smaller so cutting down the file size.

I have added a new gadget to my network. It is a Synology USB Station. It links via my network to a USB external HDD which can then be configured as an FTP server that can be accessed across the Internet as long as you have a fixed IP address which I do. It is also a print server which allows anyone on my network to use the printer attached to it. I have configured it so that anyone I am building a website for can access their own personal folder on the server where they can upload material for me to use in building their site. I think that this is going to be a very useful bit of kit.

I have also upgraded the hub of my network to a Netgear 24 Port Gigabyte Switch. It replaces several small switches that were slowing down cross network file transfers. It is a bit noisy as it has several small cooling fans inside it so maybe the next move will have to be a data enclosure - that leads on to thinking about a new file server. Is a network ever just as you would want it to be?

The downstairs loo I have needed for a long time is now built and working. All that is needed to finish is the tiling which will happen this weekend. It will make my life a lot easier as I don't have to struggle up the stairs to use the loo and I suspect visitors will find it useful too.


My wife Jackie won a holiday in an Internet competition this week. That makes three years in a row she has done that. It isn't as grand as our trip to Los Angeles last year but a week in a large hotel in Blackpool with all food and accommodation paid for is well worth winning. It is 20 years since we went to Blackpool so it will be very interesting to see what changes have taken place since our last visit.