It’s not glamourous, if that’s what you’re thinking – but when not in a datacentre, I did manage to get some pictures of Tokyo, Kitakyushu., and Singapore.

I started out with Firefly, as that appears to be what’s install on ReadyNAS, QNAP etc. However, it seems that doesn’t play well with iTunes versions later than the mid fifteenth century. Worse, it’s no longer maintained.

Some more googling landed me at the door of forked-daapd. The version I first installed was whatever the default is on a Debian 6 install, and that also didn’t play well with modern iTunes.

However, installing the latest version in Squeeze Backports got me much more up to date. The server, once a small config was done, indexed the music, and was available on the network. iTunes saw it. iTunes connected to it. This isn’t an old iTunes, either, this is the latest iTunes 10.5 on Lion.

It soon became apparent that whilst all was looking good initially, when the library kicks off a re-index process, which by default it does every 5 mins, it sends an update message to iTunes, which it seems the latest iTunes doesn’t like. iTunes disconnects in a huff.

More googling turned up this, which confirms the above, and shows that it’s resolvable in the short term by stopping the periodic indexing. Longer term, I’d imagine that the correct thing to send to newer iTunes will be discovered.

In the mean time, however, forked-daapd will discover AirPort Express units on startup, and you can provide AirTunes passwords in the config file.

Better than that, you can pair the “Remote” app on an iPhone or iPod with forked-daapd, and control it.

This neatly resolves the disconnect problem, along with the need to have iTunes open, or indeed, the iMac powered on at all.

Tell forked-daapd to play, and play to the Airport, which is connected to an amp, and music appears. Brilliant.

I recently got a new MacBook Pro, and soon had irssi installed.

I ran into the normal problem of notifications when I’m mentioned, or I get a PM.

If I’m busy on a different space, I’d like to be able to see a notification so that I can react to someone trying to get my attention.

So start with, google took me to http://matthewhutchinson.net/2010/8/21/irssi-screen-fnotify-and-growl-on-osx which took me to the irssi fnotify plugin script.

I’d prefer the script to notify growl directly, instead of logging to a file, and so I started looking to see how this might be achieved.

CPAN has a helpful Net::Growl module which installs nicely on the MacBook, and so modifying the fnotify script to use it was quite straight forward.

The script can be grabbed from https://github.com/karldyson/IrssiGrowl

To use it, simply drop it into your .irssi/scripts directory.

You can then /script load growl

If you want to autorun the script, simply symlink it to your .irssi/scripts/autorun directory.

There are currently two settings, one for the password you set when you enabled network settings in Growl (you did set a password, right?) and one for the host to use. It defaults to localhost, but there’s no reason you couldn’t use it on a non Mac and have it remote notify to a Mac. You could run irssi on a linux box, and have it remote notify your Mac across your network (firewalls, etc, permitting!).

Edited to add…

You’ll want to go and look in Growl’s preferences and enable the ‘Listen for incoming notifications’ on the Network tab, and also ‘Allow remote application registration’. You really should set a password for this, too. You need to be aware that the password will be saved in clear text in your .irssi/config file.

Following on from that, we were very pleased to find our post allocation for the weekend was “Farm”, or for those less familiar with the corner names, that’s the first corner.

The rain on Friday made for an interesting time, with a small selection of visitors to our gravel, and a little work for the JCB.

We managed to get dried out in the marquee before heading back to the tent for the night.

We didn’t get any more visitors, but were directly opposite our collegues at Pit Exit, and watched in dismay as Jensen Button’s car came to a halt, and was pushed back into the safety gap. At that point, we were unsure as to what had happened.

The exhilaration at the start of the Grand Prix as the lights go out and the cars race head on towards you before heading around the corner, was simply amazing. Words can’t express the feeling of actually being there.

When off duty, or in suitable gaps in the proceedings we were able to take a couple of pics. Otherwise, of course, the camera was away in the bag in the post chief’s hut, as cameras and being ready for an incident are not a good mix.

There was a Red Arrows display on Sunday, but two things scuppered my picture taking – firstly, most of the display was blocked out  by the BRDC grandstand, and secondly, it sporadically rained quite a bit during the display, and so it was quite hard to have the camera out and ready for the next bit that was visible!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics…

It’s the first time we’ve done this meet, and really enjoyed the 3 days of GT1, GT3, GT4 & Lamborghini racing.

After we were finished on Sunday, we popped down to the new pit lane and had a little look around, and took some pics.

If you’ve switched on IPv6, whether via a tunnel, or natively, your machine is likely to have stepped out from behind NAT and now has a globally routable address.

Whilst NAT is not security, and inbound connections to your machine are likely behind a firewall, that doesn’t change one thing: in many cases your IPv6 address is made up automatically by auto-configuration.

It’s made up of two parts, the last 64 bits are put together partly from the MAC address of your network interface, and the rest comes from the network prefix.

This makes your machine globally identifiable, and therefore, trackable by third parties, such as web sites.

To this end, RFC3041, superceeded by RFC 4941 defines privacy extensions.

When enabled, your machine still has the auto-configuration address, but now also has a randomised additional address that changes periodically and is used for outbound connections.

On many linux distributions this is disabled by default. Windows XP is the same. Windows Vista enables it by default, and I believe newer versions of Windows also enable it by default.

I don’t have access to any Windows Server installations with IPv6, so I’m unsure if the server editions do this too.

I mention servers, as you probably don’t want this on a server. Imagine, for example, a mail server making an outbound connection from a random and short lived IP address. It’s unlikely to have a valid PTR, for example, and many, not all I grant you, but many MTAs will not like that.

Enabling it on Linux

Enabling it on linux distributions is quite straight forward:

as root:

echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/use_tempaddr

You can automate this at boot in the normal way; edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add the line:

net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr=2

You can swap all for a specific IPv6 enabled interface, such as eth0 if you require.

Enabling it on OS X

OS X has it disabled by default. I believe you can add to, or create /etc/sysctl.conf with the following:

net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr=1

Don’t quote me on that last one; I’ve not tested it!

It’s just over 5 weeks since my surgery, and it’s gone very well, actually.

As mentioned in the previous article, I woke up with no pain, and was discharged the day after surgery.

I was advised to take the pain killers for 2 weeks, and to stop the Ibuprofen component after the first week. To clarify; I was on 400mg Ibuprofen 3 times a day, and 1g Paracetamol 4 times a day, so I was taking Paracetamol at 7am, 12pm, 5pm, 10pm, and Ibuprofen at 7am, 3pm, 10pm. In actual fact, I stopped the Ibuprofen after a week, and decided to stop the paracetamol a day or so later, figuring I could always start taking them again if any discomfort or pain appeared. Well, it turned out that I didn’t take them again at all.

I’d also been taking 40mg Omeprazole every day, and stopped those 2 weeks after surgery to see if any symptoms came back before my follow up consultation.

Well, I’m pleased to say that it’s 3 weeks later, I’ve had no indigestion, heartburn, etc at all.

The wounds are healing very well, and the surgeon was pleased with them at the followup consultation earlier today.

There are other side effects that are mentioned, and you’re warned about, of course. These are due to the body adjusting to the fact that bile produced no longer gets stored up until there is need for it, and simply drips into the intestines as it’s produced. It takes time to adjust, but I was told that as my stones were quite big, that there may be an element of overflow anyway, and that adjusting may not be too bad for me. Well, the first week was interestingly loose, with it firming up in the second week. During this time, there was a need to be near a toilet as I didn’t seem to get huge amounts of notice that I’d need to go. However, this rapidly resolved itself in the 3rd week, and indeed, I worked from home during the 3rd week. I had sufficient confidence as to my porcelain needs, if you catch my drift, to return to commuting to the office (an hours drive) from the start of the 4th week.

It’s now the start of the 6th week since surgery, and I’d say I’m back to normal, but it’s better than that; I’m better than normal – I’ve had no pain, no discomfort, not even the slightest indigestion.

If you’re reading this because you have gallstones and are trying to decide, I can honestly say that I would do it again. If you want to contact me to ask me about my experience, go ahead. I’ve tried to brain dump into these 3 articles as much as possible, partly so I can remember bits of what happened, when, hopefully, this is all behind me and nothing but a blip on my history.

I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly express my thanks to all the staff in the Wytham Wing, and on the Upper GI Ward at The Churchill Hospital, Oxford, for the care I received leading up to, and through my surgery. Many other people were involved in caring for me during my tests (starting at SEU at The John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and later at The Manor Hospital, Oxford) and it would not be possible to list and thank them all individually.

My thanks especially go to the surgeon, Bruno Sgromo, and his team. At all times, I was kept informed of all options, everything was discussed with me in order to make an informed choice, during procedures everything was explained. I felt calm, which when you see the scope to be used for an endoscopy, isn’t all that easy, and more than anything, they put up with my questions, and reassured my worries. Further information on the conditions treated are available on his website at http://oxford-surgery.co.uk. I can’t recommend him or his team highly enough.

Similarly to that post, I’ve written this while it’s fairly fresh in my mind, partly for my own records, but on my blog rather than somewhere private, in case it’s of use or comfort to someone else going through this. Also, just like the last post, it’s written by me, and so may have badly remembered facts in it, missed details, etc.

I went to the hospital with my wife, and arrived there around 10:30am.

After a short wait, I was taken to the Upper GI Ward, and shown to a private room with it’s own telly, direct diallable phone and bathroom.

My wife was told she’d be able to stay in the room and watch telly while I went for surgery, and that they’d keep her up to date with my progress.

The surgeon came to see me, and once again, we discussed the risks associated with the surgery, as well as the risks for not having surgery. I had wondered if they would check if there were any escaped stones in my bile duct, and also how they check if there is any obvious damage to the bile duct caused by the surgery. He calmly explained how this is done, and with my mind at ease, he showed me his ID and I signed the consent paperwork.

My next visit was from the anaesthetist, who asked me a selection of questions, before telling a nurse what medication I was to have before surgery, and he left saying he’d see me shortly.

The nurse returned with a selection of tablets that I washed down with minimal water, and then changed into one of those lovely hospital gowns, and a pair of nice tight ‘long haul’ socks to minimise DVT during my stay.

And then it was time. It doesn’t matter how great the confidence you have in the nursing staff looking after you, or the confidence you have in the surgeon that will operate on you; surgery, for me, at least, was a little frightening, and I was quite nervous. My wife was allowed to walk with us a little way, but we had to hug and part at the doors with the “Staff Only” sign, and a sign indicating this was the way to the operating theatres.

We walked to the theatres and into the outer prep room, where I lay down on the bed.

The nurse attached pads to my chest and side for a machine that measured my heart rate, and attached a blood pressure monitor to my right arm that started taking my blood pressure every few minutes. She also wrapped my legs in things that looked like oversize shin guards, which she said helped prevent DVT during surgery. These were on top of the fetching socks I was already wearing!

The anaesthetist inserted a line into my left hand, having shaved the back of my hand and wrist, and the nurse connected it to a drip.

The anaesthetist then placed a pad of some description on my forehead and explained that this was his favoured method of keeping a check on how asleep I was during surgery, and that it monitored my brain waves. He connected it up to a machine I couldn’t see.

He warned me that he was going to place an oxygen mask over my face, and to breath normally. After a few minutes, he explained he was going to introduce something to my drip that might feel cold in my arm (I didn’t feel it at all, actually), and to stay calm. I noticed the clock on the wall said 2pm as I drifted away.

Apparently, I was woken up at the end of surgery while still in the theatre and asked how I felt. Apparently, I didn’t open my eyes, but with a big smile said that I was happy the pain in my back would be gone. I don’t remember this at all.

I became aware of a voice saying “Karl, can you hear me, Karl?”. Everything was fuzzy and out of focus. I blinked a couple of times. “Karl? Can you hear me?” Yes, I said, I can hear you, but I’m disorientated and everything is fuzzy.

This is the first thing I remember afterwards. As the room came into focus, I noticed a clock on the wall. It was 5pm.

I asked if someone could tell my wife I was awake, and the nurse started checking I could move my feet, legs etc, before putting massagers on my lower legs. I was still hooked up to the various monitoring machines, as well as the oxygen mask. This didn’t concern me, as I’d been warned that this would be the case at the pre-operation assessment.

I didn’t feel sick, I wasn’t sick, nor did I experience any pain when I woke. This kind of surprised me, as my previous experience of surgery involved being sick on waking up after surgery, but this was just like pleasantly waking up after a sleep, and I was surprised how relaxed and calm I felt.

Time seemed to tick by quite quick, and at around 5.40pm it was decided I could return to my room. I was wheeled through the hospital and back to my room where my wife was waiting. It was certainly good to see her.

The surgeon had been to see her after surgery, and explained there had been some delay starting, as between them they couldn’t persuade the bed to rise to operating height, and so had had to swap me to another bed and start over. He went on to explain to her that my gall bladder had been very inflamed, and that if like that 3 days after I’d been in pain, I must have been in a lot of pain. He went on to say that as it was, it was likely that it had been the cause of all my symptoms; no guarantee, but that it was likely I’d be 100% after I’d recovered. There had been no complications during surgery.

A short while later, he came to see me, and explained to me as above. He said that there was no pressure to go home, but that as things had gone well, I could do so if I wanted to; if I felt I’d be more comfortable at home. Personally, I felt more calm knowing that in the unlikely event of a problem, a nurse was at the other end of my call button for that first night, and besides, by this point it was 7 or 8pm, and I didn’t fancy trying to go home in the dark, and wet weather. My wife stayed until around 9.15pm before driving home.

I didn’t really feel tired, and despite switching the light out, didn’t fall asleep. I’d been unhooked from the heart rate and blood pressure monitors so they didn’t disturb me, and when the nurse returned with more pain killers at 11pm, unhooked me from the drip. I watched some telly until around 1am, and tried to sleep some more, but with no joy. For some reason, I didn’t feel worried by this, just nice and calm. I’d been told I could use my phone in my room, and so Twitter and Facebook provided some entertainment for a few hours, before I managed to snooze a little. A nurse came by to take my blood pressure and temperature around 2am.

Around 6.30am, a nurse came by with some more pain killers. The surgeon had changed my chart when he visited the evening before, so I was now on 1g paracetamol and 400mg ibuprofen at various intervals. I wasn’t sure what I’d had at 11pm, but by 6.30am I wasn’t in any pain or discomfort. I took the 1g paracetamol at around 7am.

The surgeon returned to visit me again at around 8.30am, and enquired how I felt. I explained I’d had the paracetamol, and that standing up fully felt like it was pulling on the wounds. He asked if I could breath fully in without pain, and whilst there was no pain, there was a little discomfort. He advised taking the ibuprofen as well, and explained that for the first week, I should continue this. He explained he’d see me in 4 weeks to see how the wounds were healing, and to see if I had any of the side effects we’d discussed. He explained I would be discharged that day, and could go home.

To me, it seems like a huge advance in surgery, when having had an organ removed, you can go home the next day. Indeed, I could have gone home the same day, especially had my surgery been earlier in the day.

My wife arrived around 11am, and sat with me.

As a random aside; for at least the last 20 years I knew I had bad breath, and no amount of dietary changes, toothpaste, mouthwash etc had changed that. I’d come to accept it. To clarify, my breath was not nice, and often had a whif of nail polish remover. She’d noticed the day before when I returned from surgery, and on noticing again on that Saturday morning, remarked to me that the awful breath I’d had for all the time she’d known me had simply gone.

At around 1pm, a nurse arrived with my discharge paperwork, and a prescription for 1g paracetamol to be taken every 4 – 6 hours, and also for 400mg ibuprofen, to be taken 3 times a day.

My wounds were checked and cleaned, and I went home.