So, this morning I woke up early and took Leela off to her first day of work over at the hospital. I then returned home at about 8.30, and rang BT straight away to sort out my ADSL. There was no queue, I got straight through to an advisor, and they instantly knew what my problem was and resolved it to my satisfaction within 5 minutes.
Ok, seriously though, when I got back from dropping Leela off, I did ring BT, and I did get straight through to an advisor. But then it was 8.30, who the hell else is going to be ringing BT that early. However, the person I spoke to told me that it was nothing to do with them, and that I should contact my ISP to contact BT Wholesale directly.
The plot thickened, but very very slowly. I was kicked between BT and Plusnet for 5 hours. Yes, that's right, it didn't get sorted out until 13:30. Plusnet were telling me that my ADSL was cancelled on the 25th due to a PSTN cease (cease of phone line) that was submitted on the 14th and was therefore nothing to do with them, but BT were telling me that plusnet had requested an ADSL cease on 15/07 which was therefore nothing to do with them. The plusnet people were always on the ball and always gave me the same message, but with BT none of the operators had a clue what I was talking about, and they kept putting me through to departments they shouldn't - most notably BT Wholesale and BT Repairs, neither of whom are supposed to talk to customers. Special mention to the nice friendly chaps in BT Repairs, who were very sympathetic and gave me lots of support before putting me through to BT Broadband. Who were, unfortunately, as useless as the rest, telling me to contact my ISP.
Maybe by now you're getting as bored as I was by the whole thing. I must have heard that bloody pier gint tune in its entirety at least 30 times - I started counting, but I gave up when I found it more exciting to clean my keyboard with a cotton wool bud and nail varnish remover, key by key, all 5 tiny little surfaces. Got through half a keyboard at a time, I did, but then I ran out of keyboards.
Long story short, at 13:04, a customer services person finally put me through to 'BT Customer Options Broadband' (how many broadband divisions does this company have?):
BT Lady: So are you with AOL?
Me: No, plusnet.
BT Lady: Errr, AOL?
Me: No, plusnet.
BT Lady: Errr...
Me: Errr?
BT Lady: Errr, I think I see what has happened.
Basically, my order for a phone line went through to BT on 06/07. However, the AOL ADSL cancellation from the previous tennent went through on... yes, 06/07. So they missed each other in the system, didn't flag up an error, and both were initiated. Only the activation on the 13th was over the top of the existing one, so the cancellation on the 15th cancelled both. Happy happy joy!
The nice lady has now contacted someone in BT Wholesale for me, who is going to push the order through within a couple of days. Apparently. However, for some unknown reason I feel the need to finish with:
Watch this space.
August 2005
We Still Really Love BT
1st August 2005 at 17:418 comments
We Love BT SO MUCH
9th August 2005 at 22:48Comment
Yes, so the activation date for my ADSL, the ADSL I ordered on 06/07, didn't end up being within 48 hours as I was promised. No, it was a week, scheduled for Monday 08/08. It is now 22:40 on Tuesday 09/08, and, no, you guessed it, still no ADSL. Woo.
Seriously, what are BT playing at? I've been waiting for my ADSL line for over a month, and it's all their fault. They are so completely incompetent, the only way they haven't gone under is just because they are our only option. And it's not just that I've been without ADSL for a month. The other thing is that I'm only here for 12 months - seeing as they haven't sorted me out yet, I'm facing an 11 month contract and a penalty from my ISP for quitting early. I am not happy - BT are definitely going to be on the recieving end of a strongly worded letter! Yeah! That'll learn em good!
The good news is that I have a shiny new server sitting here ready and waiting for me to download linux onto it; but that has to wait, I dont really fancy spending 3 days getting the ISO over dialup. Ooh, and I finally seem to have a WAP that works, which is nice.
Leela is off for a couple of days tomorrow - she has some training somewhere, so I will be all alone. And with no internet either! Burn. I'm limited now to doing work that doesn't require an internet connection, which is a bit of a pain for someone who develops websites for a living and who doesn't have a working local server. Hohum. Well, I hope that all is well with everyone else, and good luck to those of you who also have BT problems - I guess at least I have dialup!
Seriously, what are BT playing at? I've been waiting for my ADSL line for over a month, and it's all their fault. They are so completely incompetent, the only way they haven't gone under is just because they are our only option. And it's not just that I've been without ADSL for a month. The other thing is that I'm only here for 12 months - seeing as they haven't sorted me out yet, I'm facing an 11 month contract and a penalty from my ISP for quitting early. I am not happy - BT are definitely going to be on the recieving end of a strongly worded letter! Yeah! That'll learn em good!
The good news is that I have a shiny new server sitting here ready and waiting for me to download linux onto it; but that has to wait, I dont really fancy spending 3 days getting the ISO over dialup. Ooh, and I finally seem to have a WAP that works, which is nice.
Leela is off for a couple of days tomorrow - she has some training somewhere, so I will be all alone. And with no internet either! Burn. I'm limited now to doing work that doesn't require an internet connection, which is a bit of a pain for someone who develops websites for a living and who doesn't have a working local server. Hohum. Well, I hope that all is well with everyone else, and good luck to those of you who also have BT problems - I guess at least I have dialup!
I Have ADSL!
11th August 2005 at 10:46Comment
Yes, it's true, I have ADSL! Sadly it's the one on the line that I've had at home in Sevenoaks for the past 4 years, and not the one I'm trying to get activated here in Cornwall. Yes, despite assurances on the 1st that they'd rush it through in 48 hours, and despite them then saying it would be ready on Monday 8th, it's now 10:40 on Thursday 11th and there's still no sign of it, even after over 7 hours of phone calls. What a joke. Now I have an 8mb file to download this morning - my phone bill is going to be insane.
Oh, and 4 weeks after ordering it, still no sign of the bed either. Of the three things you need in a house (bed, internet and fridge), I only have one. And even then that's only because I drove it 300 miles across the country. Just goes to show - if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Can anyone tell me how to enable ADSL on my line if I can gain access to the exchange? Think I'll go google lock picking now.
Also my copy of Flash on my desktop has gone wrong - every time I load it I'm told that I need a serial number, and I have to type it in. Every time. I don't have that much of a problem with companies putting sensible copy protection on their software, but please, let me use it once I have bought it.
I am slightly lost without the internet. That's quite sad isn't it. Hmm. I think I will go have breakfast now.
Oh, and 4 weeks after ordering it, still no sign of the bed either. Of the three things you need in a house (bed, internet and fridge), I only have one. And even then that's only because I drove it 300 miles across the country. Just goes to show - if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Can anyone tell me how to enable ADSL on my line if I can gain access to the exchange? Think I'll go google lock picking now.
Also my copy of Flash on my desktop has gone wrong - every time I load it I'm told that I need a serial number, and I have to type it in. Every time. I don't have that much of a problem with companies putting sensible copy protection on their software, but please, let me use it once I have bought it.
I am slightly lost without the internet. That's quite sad isn't it. Hmm. I think I will go have breakfast now.
Now that's service
12th August 2005 at 15:033 comments
I rang Plusnet at 14:54 to complain that I still did not have an ADSL connection. At 14:57, my little 'Sync' light stopped flashing. I now have adsl. Awesome.
Well, true, that was just coincidence, and given the incompentence of BT over the past 37 days, I'm a bit hesitant to sign this one off - but I'm going to be hopeful and optimistic and say Yay For That.
Still, as one door to hell closes, another one opens. After 4 weeks waiting for the bed to be delivered, they have finally recieved it at the warehouse from their supplier. Only it's just the bed, they're still waiting for the matress. That's going to be at least another 2 weeks.
Still, guess I can't complain too much, yay for plusnet!
Well, true, that was just coincidence, and given the incompentence of BT over the past 37 days, I'm a bit hesitant to sign this one off - but I'm going to be hopeful and optimistic and say Yay For That.
Still, as one door to hell closes, another one opens. After 4 weeks waiting for the bed to be delivered, they have finally recieved it at the warehouse from their supplier. Only it's just the bed, they're still waiting for the matress. That's going to be at least another 2 weeks.
Still, guess I can't complain too much, yay for plusnet!
The Phone Rings...
17th August 2005 at 12:18Comment
I don't recognise the number, but I answer anyway. "Hello?"
"Hello, this is John at Savoy, just ringing to tell you that your breakfast bar has been prepared."
"Errr"
One of my more surreal wrong numbers. Unfortunately it was not the Savoy Hotel, but rather appears to have been Savoy Timber in Wigan.
In other news, airplane condensation trails are the method the Illuminati use to distribute their mind control drugs.
"Hello, this is John at Savoy, just ringing to tell you that your breakfast bar has been prepared."
"Errr"
One of my more surreal wrong numbers. Unfortunately it was not the Savoy Hotel, but rather appears to have been Savoy Timber in Wigan.
In other news, airplane condensation trails are the method the Illuminati use to distribute their mind control drugs.
Installing Debian from a USB Key
18th August 2005 at 13:59Comment
As some of you may remember, I have recently bought a new server and have been waiting for the internet to set up linux on it. Well, now I have the internet I have no excuses.
Seeing as it's intended to be a network file storage system, it has no need for trivial devices such as floppy or CD drives, so I didn't buy it any. Instead I decided I was going to install over my network, booting from a USB flash drive memory stick key whateveryoucallit thinger.
I'm installing Debian stable 3.1 (sarge) on an i386 (Athlon Sempron). While the Debian documentation for installing on USB is helpful, the site structure is a total mess and I found it quite tricky to find everything that I needed. It also didn't help me solve the problems I faced, so I am writing this here in the hope that I can help somebody else doing the same thing as me in the future. That and so that when I try to do this again in the future and it all goes wrong, I can come back and check what happened.
The main page in the debian documentation is "4.4.1. Copying the files — the easy way", but to do that you will need two files. The first is boot.img.gz, which is available from the hd-media directory of Debian-Installer, and the second is your installation ISO. Because my USB key is 256mb, I went with a network installation, and grabbed the 180mb netinst file from here, although there is a 40mb business card size if you have a smaller drive.
Although it is might be possible to set up a linux-booting USB key from within windows, I didn't bother looking because I already had a working linux machine. I had to recompile my kernel to be able to access my USB key - I added SCSI support, USB support, USB UHCI/OHCI support and USB Mass Storage, as well as support for FAT16, which was 'msdos'. Once rebooted, I had to:
and then the drive was available at /dev/sda.
The next thing I did was follow the instructions in 4.4.1, but I ran into problems when I got the USB key to my server - it gave the ever-helpful message 'Boot failed'. It was not saying boot device not found though, so I knew the problem was with the USB key. Taking it back to the server and repeating 4.4.1 resulted in many error messages saying 'sense key medium error' and 'peripheral device write fault'. After a bit of playing, I used fdisk to wipe the partition tables, removed the drive and reinserted it, which seemed to fix it. So, I'd advise the following before doing 4.4.1:
Check partition tables (p)
Delete all partitions (d then 1-4, repeat until p is empty)
Write the partition table and exit fdisk (w)
Remove the USB key and reinsert it.
Now I followed the instructions in 4.4.1 again without any problems:
This time when I took it to the server it booted up successfully and asked me several questions. However, when it tried to locate the ISO it failed. After a little prodding I decided that it wasn't looking at the USB key, so of course it was failing to find the ISO there. However, once the install wrapper has failed to find the ISO it offers access to a shell, so I did the following:
Select the menu option to execute shell
Now the USB key has been found, so we can:
Then just ctrl+d to return to install menu, and select the option to scan hard drives again. Hey presto, it all works.
No doubt I will run into more problems as I continue installing, but it all seems to be working fine now, making my biggest problem finding an obscure southpark reference as the name for my machine...
Seeing as it's intended to be a network file storage system, it has no need for trivial devices such as floppy or CD drives, so I didn't buy it any. Instead I decided I was going to install over my network, booting from a USB flash drive memory stick key whateveryoucallit thinger.
I'm installing Debian stable 3.1 (sarge) on an i386 (Athlon Sempron). While the Debian documentation for installing on USB is helpful, the site structure is a total mess and I found it quite tricky to find everything that I needed. It also didn't help me solve the problems I faced, so I am writing this here in the hope that I can help somebody else doing the same thing as me in the future. That and so that when I try to do this again in the future and it all goes wrong, I can come back and check what happened.
The main page in the debian documentation is "4.4.1. Copying the files — the easy way", but to do that you will need two files. The first is boot.img.gz, which is available from the hd-media directory of Debian-Installer, and the second is your installation ISO. Because my USB key is 256mb, I went with a network installation, and grabbed the 180mb netinst file from here, although there is a 40mb business card size if you have a smaller drive.
Although it is might be possible to set up a linux-booting USB key from within windows, I didn't bother looking because I already had a working linux machine. I had to recompile my kernel to be able to access my USB key - I added SCSI support, USB support, USB UHCI/OHCI support and USB Mass Storage, as well as support for FAT16, which was 'msdos'. Once rebooted, I had to:
modprobe usb-uhci
modprobe usb-storageand then the drive was available at /dev/sda.
The next thing I did was follow the instructions in 4.4.1, but I ran into problems when I got the USB key to my server - it gave the ever-helpful message 'Boot failed'. It was not saying boot device not found though, so I knew the problem was with the USB key. Taking it back to the server and repeating 4.4.1 resulted in many error messages saying 'sense key medium error' and 'peripheral device write fault'. After a bit of playing, I used fdisk to wipe the partition tables, removed the drive and reinserted it, which seemed to fix it. So, I'd advise the following before doing 4.4.1:
fdisk /dev/sdaCheck partition tables (p)
Delete all partitions (d then 1-4, repeat until p is empty)
Write the partition table and exit fdisk (w)
Remove the USB key and reinsert it.
Now I followed the instructions in 4.4.1 again without any problems:
zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda
mount -t msdos /dev/sda /mnt
cp debian-31r0a-i386-netinst.iso /mnt/deb31r0a.iso
umount /mntThis time when I took it to the server it booted up successfully and asked me several questions. However, when it tried to locate the ISO it failed. After a little prodding I decided that it wasn't looking at the USB key, so of course it was failing to find the ISO there. However, once the install wrapper has failed to find the ISO it offers access to a shell, so I did the following:
Select the menu option to execute shell
lsmod reveals no usb-ohci. My guess is it only looks at usb-uhci, or forgets to look at usb-uhci and usb-ohci at all. So:insmod usb-ohci
hw-detectNow the USB key has been found, so we can:
mount /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc /cdromThen just ctrl+d to return to install menu, and select the option to scan hard drives again. Hey presto, it all works.
No doubt I will run into more problems as I continue installing, but it all seems to be working fine now, making my biggest problem finding an obscure southpark reference as the name for my machine...
Debian Installation Proceeds
19th August 2005 at 13:54Comment
The only other problem that I have run into so far has been the way the installer insisted on installing the MBR to the wrong drive (hda rather than hde). I reinstalled, saying no to installing grub on the MBR and entering the destination manually, but then grub was still pointing at the wrong drive, so I had to find the drive vmlinuz was on (with
As I said yesterday, I have gone for Debian stable again. Some people don't like the way that everything's out of date, but the only thing that has caused problems for me in the past was the version of Samba - 2.2.3a gave me a serious headache with Flash, so I ended up using a backported version - not ideal. However, a new version of Debian stable has recently been released, and that comes with Samba 3, so no problems there.
To me the advantage of using Debian stable is that it doesn't change. I can install it, set it up and then leave it, safe in the knowledge that any security problems will shortly be patched through apt-get. At the end of the day this computer is a tool to make sure that I don't lose my work if/when a hard drive fails, and I don't want to waste my time upgrading things that are working fine - I just want to use it.
find vmlinux-versionstuff), and change the root command accordingly. The obscure southpark reference I went for in the end was 'uriel', after the Archangel of salvation (episode 904) - quite appropriate for a backup server, I thought...As I said yesterday, I have gone for Debian stable again. Some people don't like the way that everything's out of date, but the only thing that has caused problems for me in the past was the version of Samba - 2.2.3a gave me a serious headache with Flash, so I ended up using a backported version - not ideal. However, a new version of Debian stable has recently been released, and that comes with Samba 3, so no problems there.
To me the advantage of using Debian stable is that it doesn't change. I can install it, set it up and then leave it, safe in the knowledge that any security problems will shortly be patched through apt-get. At the end of the day this computer is a tool to make sure that I don't lose my work if/when a hard drive fails, and I don't want to waste my time upgrading things that are working fine - I just want to use it.
A Sad Day
22nd August 2005 at 16:482 comments
Today is a sad day. I have stopped my Sky subscription, after 12 wonderful years of delight. Although only subscribed to the sports channels for the first year, and to the movie channels for no more than three years, it never ceased to find something interesting to show me. Sky One gleefully accompanied me through the last seasons of Deep Space 9, Buffy and Voyager, and introduced me to the wonders of Stargate SG1, not to mention the putting on Trek re-runs every weekday at midnight. On the odd occasion when Sky One could not entertain me, the little box of sunshine was always able to find a documentary or enjoyable music videos to pass the time, leaving me with joy in my heart and a smile on my face. But when I took over the direct debit 18 months ago, I knew our days together were numbered.
So farewell, dear Sky, I will always remember my time with you fondly. Perhaps we will meet again some day.
So farewell, dear Sky, I will always remember my time with you fondly. Perhaps we will meet again some day.