Moving house

NOTE: moved house, left tank

NOTE: bought torch + zoas

from Thurcroft

NOTE: Perc Clowns from Bawtry + new heater

NOTE: Starry Blenny + 2x Emerald Mithrax crabs from Ecclesfield

NOTE: 10x hermits + 2x blue legs from Thurcroft

won: job lot of marine chems & tests

API Nitrate, API Nitrite, API Ammonia kits

SALIFERT pH, Calcium, Magnesium and Phospate kits

1/2 tub of Rowaphos and 1/2 tub of Purigen.

1/2 box of Milliput (for attaching corals to rocks etc)

Protozin (new/sealed) and Myaxin (5ml used) medications and almost full bottle of Apstasia X.

Almost full container of marine flake and net.

NOTE: bought Blood Shrimp from Viscum + 3x hermits

NOTE: bought pulsing xenia frag

from Viscum. VERY expensive!!!

First 24hrs

We got the tank home late last night and set it up quite crudely to ensure that the live rock was still able to act as a filter.

I removed the crab into a temporary home while I had the chance as I knew he'd disappear into the rocks and we'd never see him again. At least this way, I'd have the choice of re-introducing it when I found out what it was.

When it was all together the water was totally thick with fine sand particles, the live rock was dumped in the middle in a heap and the Humbug was quite crudely dropped in too. It was left overnight to settle and I'd sort it out then. The water level was quite low too, so the rear chambers were dangerously low so I knew I had to go out and get some water ASAP.

So, woke up this morning to find the water had cleared, the Humbug fish was swimming about but every surface was coated in fine grey sand, under that was red coralline algae and green algae.

The only local fish seller (LFS) I know is Viscum, so I toddled off there to get 25l of salt water and a small tub of food for the fish.

Nano marine - the beginnings

Well, I've always wanted a marine reef tank but was always turned off by the extreme expense and difficulty in keeping them.
Thankfully, technology has moved on to the point where it's not ridiculously expensive any more thanks to the new small complete tanks.

Having previously kept tropical discus fish I was aware that it was entirely possible to get a 2nd hand full setup at a massive price saving and also kickstart the whole process to boot avoiding all the tank filter cycling and other stuff.

So, I won and auction for a D&D 24g Nano tank as a complete setup. Below are some pics of it at the sellers house before I brought it home and here's an inventory:

• D-D 24gallon nano marine tank full set up which includes:
• Boyu 310 Skimmer
• Eheim 1000 return pump
• Spare stock return pump
• Koralia Nano powerhead
• Live Sand
• Approx 10kg of LR
• 1 Humbug Damsel fish (Black & White)

When we dismantled the tank it turned out there was a hitch hiker crab too.

Acer Aspire One died! Found a solution :( BIOS corrupted

My Acer Aspire One died this afternoon and refused to startup, it didn't even get to the bios loading screen.

A quick google produced a solution at the link here. Thanks to the original author.

Basically, the BIOS had corrupted and it needed reseting.

Phew!

Mp3 BPM calculation and iTunes

I recently bought an iPod touch and started running for fitness. I have a large collection of MP3s and I wanted to get the BPM field completed for all of my MP3s so that I can choose audio based on it's tempo.


After a *lot* of googling I ended up with the following working solution:
a) use the freeware Mixmeister BPM calculator to batch analyse all of the files. This took hours to do but it's the core of it all. Note that this tool outputs accurate bpms to 2 decimal places, which need fixing with the following step.
b) round all of the BPMs up/down to the nearest integer. This is a more recent requirement as apparently iTunes 8.1 and above ignore decimal points for BPM so you *have* to get them all to integers. e.g., 123.4 won't work, 123 will work.
I do this by running scripts through Mp3tag as written here: http://forums.mp3tag.de/lofiversion/index.php/t8295.html
c) I use ITLU (iTunes Library Updater) to tell iTunes the new BPM files have changed and it needs to refresh. If you don't do this, iTunes won't update it's understanding of the BPM.

PlayStation 3 PS3 - what you get for the money

As always, comments are welcome.

Now, I'm fortunate enough to work for Sony but regardless of that I really like my PlayStation 3. What follows is my personal view and does not represent that of my employer or any other person.

Here's what I can do by itself at no extra cost:
* Play PS3 games obviously
* Watch Blu-Rays & DVDs in high-def. The DVD upscaling is the best I've seen
* Listen to music with a great visual display to match of planet earth in glorious HD
* Look at photos with a great looking slideshow that looks like someone throwing photos onto a table
* Wirelessly connect to the internet for browsing
* Download & play brilliant games from the PlayStation Store
* play online with other players at no extra cost

If you compare that to what you get out of the box from an Xbox 360 then you can see that it represents much better value. Especially if you tried to replicate everything it does with supporting hardware.

Here's what supporting hardware I've got, none of which is essential but it adds to the experience:
* Play TV
* PlayStation Portable
* BluRay remote
* Buffalo Terastation Duo - 1TB (Media Server)
* Full HD tv

Add in the PlayTV and you've got yourself a Freeview+ box (terrestrial freeview and a digital recorder) to watch and record digital TV

Now, layer onto this a PSP to connect to your PS3 via Remote Play and you can remotely connect to your PS3 from anywhere in the world and view photos, listen to music, watch videos and watch live tv and your recorded programmes!

Now, throw in a media server that your PS3 magically connects to and you can safely store all of your photos, music and video and access them either on your PS3 *or* on your PSP anywhere in the world!!

This only really scratches the surface of the capabilities of the PS3 but in the space of 3 months it's become the central entertainment hub in our house through which most of our onscreen entertainment flows.

I'm objectively happy that I chose a PS3 as the base on which to build everything. I'm very happy.

Extending a wifi network - BT HomeHub & D-Link 2100AP

Firstly, my motivation for doing this was to improve the quality of my wireless network around the house as I now have loads of devices wanting to connect throughout the house - desktops, PS3, laptop, PSP, phones, iTouch, media server, the list goes on.


I've spent quite a few hours on this now and I've done a lot of investigation coupled with trial and error to get this working and I wished someone had shared their experiences.


I hope this helps someone, please post comments if you had feedback.




I started out with a BT HomeHub v1.0 and as you probably know, you can't replace the aerial and it's not very powerful so it needs help. I had an opportunity to try the HomeHub v2.0 and it doesn't work as it has some criticial software elements missing for some reason.

Despite a lot of messing around, the best signal I could get in my front room was 50% and the connection was spoaradic at best. Laptops were dropping connections and my PS3 kept getting dumped from PSN during downloads, while watching SingStar videos, listening to music from my remote media server.

After much digging, here's the setup I have.
* BT HomeHub v1.0 in my upstairs home office (this DOES NOT work with a HH v2.0 as they removed the critical bit)
* Dlink 2100AP hidden downstairs close to the front room

During my trials I had problems with WPA security and reverted the whole network down to WEP, I'll do some tests to see if I can restore the security but it's always worth going back to basics when you're trying to get something to work.

Once your 2100AP is turned on and theoretically working, go back to the HomeHub and navigate into the Advanced->Wireless->Repeater and scan to find your 2100ap, which is cunningly called 'default' by default. Select the checkbox and Apply to tell your HomeHub that it should send the wifi signal through this device.

On the 2100AP, you need to make a few changes:
* the device IP needs moving from 192.168.0.50 to 192.168.1.50 so it's on the same subnet as the HH. If you don't do this then you may as well have 2 seperate networks.
* you need to enable the DHCP server on the 2100ap, I set mine to go from 192.168.1.20 upwards but you must ensure that this DHCP range doesn't cross-over the HH DHCP range that usually starts at .64 and goes upwards. If you don't do this then your devices won't get a network address from the HH DHCP and it won't work. Again, I'll investigate this and see if I can remove the DHCP from the 2100AP and get this working just through the HH..
* Set the wireless mode to 'AP Repeater' and scan to find your home network MAC address, which will enable the 2100AP to talk to the HH - this closes the loop and bi-drectional communication and everything should now work!

I now have everything working just as I want it bar a few tweaks to simplify the setup.

I'll update this post with any fixes I make but please post comments with feedback.

Independant game development - 20yrs on

Below is a list of games I was involved with during my time in independent game development - 1988 - 2008. I've now moved over to the publishing side to experience how the other half live.



More details here on MobyGames but it's partially wrong as it's based on game credits, which were occasionally wrong and frequently never acknowledged -  http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,133861/

Title	Target	Role
To End All Wars	PS3 & X360	Project Manager
SWOS	XBLA	Project Manager
Sensible Soccer	PS2 & XBox	Project Manager
Buzz! The Sports Quiz	PS2	Project Manager
LMA Manager Pro	PC	Project Manager
Club Football 2005	PC	Project Manager
England International Football	PS2 & XBox	Project Manager
Lotus Challenge	PC	Lead Programming, Project Manager
Barbie – Treasures In Time	PS2	Programming
Black & White	PlayStation	Programming, Project Manager, Design
Rugby 2000	PlayStation	Project Manager
LEGO Project	PC	Project Manager, Programming
AFL98	PlayStation	Project Manager, Programming
Z	PlayStation, Saturn	Programming, Project Manager
StarFighter 3000	Saturn	Assistant Programmer
XCOM - Terror From The Deep	PlayStation	Programming
Magic Carpet	Saturn	Programming
Theme Park	Saturn	Programming
Arabian Nights	Amiga, Amiga CD32	Design, Programming
Lothar Matthaus Super Star Soccer	Amiga, PC	Programming, Design
Manchester United - The Double	PC, Amiga	Programming, Design
John Barnes European Football	Amiga	Assistant Programmer
Hill Street Blues	Amiga	Assistant Programmer
James Pond II – RoboCod	MegaDrive	Programming, Design
Manchester United - Premier League Champions	Atari ST	Programming, Design
Graham Taylor's Soccer Challenge	Atari ST	Programming
Shadow Warriors	Atari ST, Amiga	Programming
Mantis	Amiga	Programming
Pears	Atari ST	Programming
OOPS	Atari 2600	Programming
T.R.A.P.	Atari ST, Amiga	Programming