mysql error message

When checking my MySQL databases, most were OK but I saw a message

myisamchk: File '(built-in)' not found (Errcode: 2)

This looked wierd. But I eventually tracked this down to the fact that two tables has an Index field specified as FULLTEXT. Once this index was removed, everything wasw OK.

The really wierd aspect was that checking a single table, the error did not appear, but checking multiple tables the error showed up on the second table that had an index of FULLTEXT. The first table that had an index of FULLTEXT did not have a problem! Wierd!

Who Vouched for me?

This month has been a bit of a problem with lots of unwanted telemarketting telephone calls on my private, TPS registered, ex-directory number!

But full marks to UNICEF. There are the first organisation that told me where they got my details from. It would appear that some kind (sic) soul entered my details on the vouch4me website. They knew my private phone number, address and old e-mail address. It took ages to find a contact telephone number of vouch4me as their website does not give it. For the record, vouch4me is part of

Data Locator Group Plc

Tel: 00 44(0) 1923 281700

Fax: 00 44(0) 1923 281723

64 Clarendon Road
Watford
Hertfordshire
United Kingdom
WD17 1DA

Having contacted Data Locator Group Plc they confirmed that my details had been entered onto a website in April 2004 - more than 17 months ago - and they were still giving my details to third parties.

At least now they have removed me from their database so hopefully the phone will not ring so often in the middle of an interesting TV program!

MySql error

I guess I must have shutdown a LINUX system before MySQL has stopped as I have a corrupt table. The message I got was:

DBD::mysql::db do failed: Got error 127 from table handler at .......

Issued perror 127
Error code 127: Unknown error 127
127 = Record-file is crashed

It was easy to fix by

1. cd path to database tables
   
2. myisamchk -r dns_ip_2_host.MYI
   

Next time I will try
mysql dbname
REPAIR TABLE `dns_ip_2_host`

ImageMagick

Well, I needed a program to convert jpg images to a standard size for a client.

I tried using the perl GD libraries but they were not modern enough to do the job, so I tried ImageMagick.

Used FTP to get the source from ftp://ftp.imagemagick.org/pub/ImageMagick without a problem.

It even extracted without a problem!

Next steps were:

1. cd ImageMagick-6.2.7


2. ./configure --with-perl=no --prefix=~/usr/local


3. make (takes around 10 minutes)


4. make install (takes around 6 minutes)


5. PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games:~/usr/local/bin


6. identify -list format


7. convert philip_test_image.jpg -thumbnail 200x200 -raise 4x4 philip_test_image2.gif
   

Bromley and Chislehurst by-election

Things are getting better. The LibDems have selected Ben Abbotts - a local man - to fight this by election. It's the first time I have known of an acquaintance standing for parliament. Good luck to him.

Formating a disk for LINUX

Well I found a 8.4GB disk on ebay and it arrived 36 hours after bidding for it.

Now I need to prepare it for LINUX. So what do I do.....

The disk was plugged into the 2nd disk cable as primary

/sbin/fdisk /dev/hdc
Command (m for help): n
Command (m for help): p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-19376, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-19376, default 19376): +1000000K
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
e
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (1986-19376, default 1986):
Using default value 1986
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1986-19376, default 19376): 16383

NOTE that 16383 is used. That is because this 10GB disk is being used as a 8.4GB disk

Command (m for help): n
Command action
l logical (5 or over)
p primary partition (1-4)
l
First cylinder (1986-16383, default 1986):
Using default value 1986
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1986-16383, default 16383):
Using default value 16383
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hdc: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 19376 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 1 1985 1000408+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc2 1986 16383 7256592 5 Extended
/dev/hdc5 1986 16383 7256560+ 83 Linux
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.xpartitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additionalinformation.
Syncing disks.
[root@andromeda cygnus]#/sbin/mkfs.ext2 -c /dev/hdc1
[root@andromeda cygnus]#/sbin/tune2fs -j /dev/hdc1
[root@andromeda cygnus]#/sbin/mkfs.ext2 -c /dev/hdc5
[root@andromeda cygnus]#/sbin/tune2fs -j /dev/hdc1

Added the following line to /etc/fstab

/dev/hdc5 /dolphin ext3 defaults 1 2

phoenixbios 4.0 release 5.12

What a day trying to find out the largest capacity disk that the Phoenix BIOS 4.0 release 5.12 can support!

It looks as if 8.4GB is the largest size.

This is one of my Linux systems. Now all I have to do is find a 8.4Gb disk!

PC World customer service II

Well, PC World did not call me back!

I phoned again - this time as a non-business customer - but I could not find any automated option for "returns" or "guarantees". I eventually got to a person (in Nottingham) who assured my that all I needed to do was go to the store with the memory module and its sales receipt and they would replace it.

Watch this space!

I did not take to memory back to PC world because, when I removed it, it was covered in dust. So I have cleaned it up to see it the problem goes away!

PC World customer service

I have discovered that there is a problem with the memory on one of my PCs. This causes Windows to hang and occasionally to corrupt sub-directories of the C:\WINDOWS directory. Luckily, for the latter, I take regular backups and am able to restore the directories.

The memory is PNY 256MB PC2700 DIMM 184 pins DDR 333 MHz and it carries a 10 year guarantee.

Yesterday, around 9am, I telephone PC World in Orpington (0870 2420444) - as that is where I bought it about 18 months ago. I selected their "Business Customer" option from their automated system. But it seems that, as I bought it in the store and went through the tills and did not use a business account, that is not a "Business" transaction. The said they would pass my details to their service department so that they could call me back. It is not 24 hours later an still no phone call!

Opening a Word Document tries to connect to the Internet

Sheila had a problem with her laptop in that every tfime she opened a Word document the PC tried to connect to the Internet at least 6 times before she could start editing the document!

See Symantec

I just cleared the check mark on "Check for Publisher's certificate revocation" and the problem went away!

Apache SSL and gnupg and PERL

What a day. I was having a lot of problem with invoking gnupg from a PERL script running under Apache SSL.

I was getting the error message
gpg: fatal: ~/.gnupg: can't create directory: No such file or directory

Everything looks fine. The PERL script was running under the correct ID and the .gnupg directory and the files in it had the correct permissions (700) so what was wrong.

I found a few hits on the web but the solution looked a bit unsafe (give gnupg world access!). So I started to experiment with gpg --homedir /home/yyy/xxx and even when the xxx directory was only accessible by the owner, gpg created the files in it OK. So, I set gpg --homedir /home/yyy/.gnupg and, surprise surprise, it worked.

I did not like hard coding the homedir in the PERL script as it could fail in the future should the files get moved. So I used the following code to make it general purpose:


# for some reason gpg does not work unless you specify the home directory explicitly!
my @pwArray = getpwuid($>); # get info from password file for this effective ID
# password entry [7] is the home directory
my $gpgOptions = "--homedir $pwArray[7]/.gnupg --batch --yes -a etc
my $encrypted = `echo "$toEncrypt" gpg $gpgOptions 2>&1`;


I hope this helps others.

I hate spammers!

I run many web sites and today a spammer has attacked the forum on

www.derbyshireguide.co.uk

They have posted lots of messages to advertise a poker site with the words:
- online
- poker
- kiszka
- blada

in it!

I do not have a robot to clean it up so it took me over an hour to remove around 50 posts!

I have now had to close down my forum. If I find the b****ds that did this I will send them a bill for my time!

I did a google search on "online poker kiszka blada" and got 202,000 English hits. Obviously the spammers have an active robot adding filth to law abiding site!

Shropshire Weekend

Met up with friends from Derbyshire at Bishops Castle in Shropshire.

Bishops Castle boasts two micro breweries, so on Friday night it was off to the The Three Tuns Inn to sample their brew. There were three of their real ales on draught so I choose the one in the middle of alcoholic strength. A very enjoyable drink. After our drinks we went to The Poppy House for a meal. The menu was varied with some interesting choices - I had the Russian Chicken. This was reasonable value and the staff were friendly. Some more friends joined us at The Poppy House for desert. The staff had not problems with this! We had started with a booking for five people but by the end of the meal there were about 15 of us!

Next day we went for a 7 mile circular walk with 300 metres of climbing. We started at Bishops Castle and ended up at the Powis Arms at Lydbury North for lunch. There were no hot meals available, but their cheese sandwiches were very good. It has new owners and they do set a very high standard for food - even sandwiches! They had Big Nev's beer which is brewed at the Six Bells in Bishops Castle - and very good it was!

Despite to low temperature of the day (5 degrees Celsius) the lack of wind made it a very pleasurable walk and we ended back at Bishops Castle around 4pm.

Our walking group (23 of us) were booked in for a meal at the Six Bells for 7:30pm so a few of us went a little early to sample some of the other beers brewed by the Six Bells. But this is a place that could not cope with a party of 23. We were prepared for the meals to arrive over a period of time but two people - my wife and her friend - had to wait over two hours. It was clear that the cook had not looked closely at the orders and missed these two! The problem was compounded as my wife's friends choice was no longer available! In fact her second choice was not available. So she had to have something that she really did not want to eat but as it was after 9:30 she was very hungry!

That evening was marred by the pub not begin able to cope with a party of 23. We will not go there again!

Next day we went to Stokesay Castle for a look around. Although it was warmer than Saturday, the wind was a good deal stronger and the wind chill was severe. So we spent a long time in there tea shop to warm up after going around the castle.

Then we started to make our way home. We went to Much Wenlock for a quickly lunch and ended up at Carole Anne's Coffee Shop. What a very pleasant way to spend an hour with treacle pudding, chocolate sponge, other cakes and hot drinks. After the debarkle of Saturday night, it was refreshing to find helpful and attentive staff - all of whom smiled!

Having been refreshed and warmed at Carole Anne's Coffee Shop we visited Wenlock Priory. It was freezing again. So we saw it all as quickly as possible before returning to the cars to warm up and make our way home.

Ming Campbell elected Liberal Democrat leader

It was good to see that the new leader has a comfortable majority.

He said the party would champion freedom, fairness and environment protection, would be a party of democratic revolution, would tackle the secrecy which still pervades far too much of Britain, would be a party which looks beyond our shores, seeking the prosperity, security and sustainable development which is dependent on international action, would be a party which pledges to take power from Westminster and Whitehall to give it to people in their own communities.

I agree with most of those ambitions although I would put prosperity first as without prosperity, we cannot afford to protect the environment or provide the public services.

Parish Council meeting

Last night was a Parish Council meeting.

We have a PSCO that we pay 50% of the cost - the other 50% met by the Home Office. Kent police are trying to get an agreement with us but they keep insisting that they have total control of the PSCO. The Parish Council does not have a problem with Kent Police having control over the day-to-day operations of the PSCO but the Parish Council does feel that it - as paymaster - should set the PSCO's priorities. Otherwise, we are just being taxed again for a Kent Police resource.

If Kent Police want total control, they should pay for the PSCO!

Birth of a blog

As if I did not have any spare time to start a blog!

Well, today has been sunny so I have been splitting a few logs in preparation for the very cold night - BBC says -5 degrees centigrade but their new weather map seems to be far more inaccurate than before. I suppose it could be the climate change making the weather models out of date.