Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

After being away working for a couple of months, I'm finally back. However, it's taken me the best part of a week to get my main desktop PC up to date. Every application seems to want to install an update or security patch, and then reboot. Plus it seems a number of updates from Microsoft couldn't be installed first time round, so it took several goes with Windows Update to get that up to date.

What's more, my usual anti-virus program fired off a warning about a couple of files being potential trojans. Now, the two files in question have been on my PC for about 4 years, so I'm not clear why they are suddenly a risk. Perhaps if there was some other evidence of infection, I could understand that these files had been altered, but there wasn't. So, I fired up an anti-malware tool (which was installed after getting infected about 6 months ago - so clearly my AV/AM tools weren't doing their job), which of course needed updating and another reboot. This identified several different threats - one appeared to be the remains of an earlier malware infection, and again, a couple of files (not the same at the anti virus app) were identified as being trojans. I've also run an anti spyware app, which, you guessed it, picked up some other stuff, but not what the anti-virus or anti-malware apps identified.

Now, I know I've got some files on my machine which are packaged using technologies which these programs can't decompress and look inside, so they tend to flag them as warnings, but what's suddenly changed to make files I've used before (many years before) harmful now, but OK last week? And why do they all produce different results? And finally, why is it nearly impossible to find any information about the identified threats? (One app links to a generic virus search page, and the names of the viruses/trojans/etc seem to be unique to each vendor.)

I'm beginning to wonder whether these programs are actually any use, or whether they randomly pick some things to flag up as threats just to make you think they're doing their job and scare you into persisting with them or even shelling out cash on the next upgrade or wizz-bang feature. Right now, I don't trust them, and that's bad for both me and them.

PS OK, I wouldn't actually run my Windows machine without some kind of AV software running, and I don't recommend you do either. And don't give me the usual line about Linux - I run Linux too, but need to run Windows for some stuff. And as/when Linux develops the same market share as Windows, we'll suddenly find the malware creators start targetting Linux, regardless of how fancy and secure the Linux architecture is.

Unfortunately, there's been a lot of comment spam recently, so as a temporary measure, I'm moderating comments on all older posts. It's not an ideal solution, but the best I can do quickly. Once Sail Hebrides' Hebridean Maritime Festival (more to follow...) is out of the way, I'll find a more permanent, user friendly solution.

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Update: I've changed the moderation plugin (from NP_CommentControl to NP_Moderate, in case you were interested) so now you should be notified that any comments submitted will be queued for moderation, rather than just appearing to vanish into the nothingness.

I thought it was just me, but I've discovered there are a number of people and businesses having problems with their BT-based broadband service in Stornoway. The symptoms are slow IP throughput, as measure via "speed tests" such as BT's (http://www.speedtester.bt.com/) and Think Broadband's (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html).

Most common speed-related broadband issues are due the broadband connection itself being slow, caused by interference or a fault in either the copper line between the house and the BT exchange, or within the internal house wiring. However, the symptoms experienced by those suffering the problem are that the broadband connection speed (DSL sync rate) is good, but they simply aren't able to use that speed. In my own case, my line is synchronizing at roughly 5000 kbps, but I'm only able to download at between 5 and 250 kbps - with about 20 kbps being the average. Whilst it is unrealistic to expect to achieve the full 5000 kbps download rate (due to various overheads in the network protocols used), at quiet times of day I would expect to get at least 3500 kbps - not 20 kbps (which is slower than dial-up)! Strangely enough, upstream speeds seem to be unaffected.

The problem affects users of different ISPs, and given my background in broadband DSL networking (I used to work for Freeserve, Wanadoo and Orange with overall responsibility for the design and strategy of their broadband service), this clearly points to the problem being with BT, rather than with the ISPs or affected users. Whilst a number of us have escalated the problem to our ISPs, getting further information can be difficult, as the flow of information from customer to ISP to BT and back again doesn't always work well, especially with multiple department involved in BT and probably the ISPs too. However, I have seen one report that BT claim a capacity issue in the Stornoway exchange and/or BT backhaul network (which connects the exchange to the rest of the BT network), although I'm skeptical as a capacity issue would more likely have come on progressively, rather than abruptly two weeks ago. My suspicions are that it's a fault, either in the exchange, the backhaul network, or the BRAS (large router which is key to the DSL service), but I guess we'll just have to wait and see if BT can identify, and hopefully fix, the fault. It also appears that BT haven't logged this in their systems which would notify any ISPs trying to log the similar faults that it's a known issue - which suggests to me that BT haven't really identified the issue and/or aren't taking it seriously.

The issue has been ongoing for two weeks now, which is disgusting. Broadband is a key service to many people and businesses on the islands, and this continued poor service is making me feel like BT are treating us islanders are 3rd class citizens. (Not to mention the poor availability of BT's service in some outlying areas up here.)

Feel free to post comments if you're experiencing the same problem in Stornoway, or even elsewhere on the Western Isles. The more people we know with the problem, the more chance of applying pressure to get the problem resolved and the service restored. I'd also suggest you get on to your ISP and get them to run the various diagnostic tests they have available and then log the fault with BT for further investigation.

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Update (10/07/2009 18:00): After chasing up Orange Customer Services for an update with the call I logged on Wednesday, BT came back with "no fault found" (no surprise there then). Orange CS insisted on doing a factory reset to the Livebox and then asked me to run another BT speed test. This time downstream IP throughput was at 3500 kbps, which is what it should be. Orange CS were happy, as they think they fixed the problem, but there is no way on earth factory resetting the Livebox helped - for a start, it was brand new and never used before Wednesday as it was a spare I had an used to ensure my original Livebox wasn't the problem. I've also heard from Alex at ReefNet that his line looks like it's behaving again, so it appears BT might have fixed the issue sometime earlier today. Fingers crossed!

Martin, Steve and Ally came up to celebrate the start of 2009 with us. Unfortunately, Jenny had to work, but the rest of us went to find geocaches located on Lewis and Harris, which kept us out of trouble for a couple of days, even though we had to put up with Ally's pink, flowery wellies!

Unfortunately, there are no firework pictures this year - although there was a pretty good display in Stornoway, we couldn't be bothered to trek in (and back again) to see it. We did catch it from the house, but I was never sure how long it would go on for, so didn't bother grabbing the camera. I must try harder next year.

Anyway, the photo albums are here, and as ever, the best of the pics are on my flickr account in this set. (For Steve, Ally and Martin, the pics at the end are from a walk we did at Hushinish the day after you headed home.)

Great news - octopush is being played in the Western Isles! There is a junior session running at the Harris Sports Centre (Ionad Spòrs Eilean na Hearadh) in Tarbert on Friday evenings. Cameron Morrison, from the sports centre, set this up last year, and has done a fantastic job getting it up and running. The sessions were taking a break over the Christmas Holidays, and I'm not sure when they restart, but I'm sure if you call the sports centre on 01859 502944 they'll be able to tell you.

When I get my act together, I'm going to see if we can't build on Cameron's work and get something up and running here on Lewis as well - both for juniors and for adults. If anyone is interested in playing (or just finding out more), post a comment on this entry and I'll get in touch.

PS Almost forgot to mention, I've also met some of the people from the dive club in Stornoway, and they've been known to play occasionally too!

Once again, my site's been playing up. All the links within the site were giving HTTP 404 errors. This has happened before, because I use the FancyURLs option within Nucleus, which makes the URLs of each article more search engine friendly, but less web server friendly. Last time this broke was when the .htaccess file had been replaced by persons unknown who had compromised the site. However, looking into it, the .htaccess file was there and contained the right content. This files contains instructions for the webserver to URLs like "/item/223", and pass them to the the Nucleus PHP scripts to handle. Unfortunately, it looks like my hosting provider made some changes to their implementation of PHP and Apache, and the standard instructions for making FancyURLs work are no longer compatible. The old .htaccess file had directives along the lines of:

<FilesMatch "^item$">
    ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch> 

After much digging around and experimenting, I have a solution. Instead of using the Apache ForceType directive, the Apache SetHandler directive works instead. So now the above should be changed to:

<FilesMatch "^item$">
    SetHandler php-script
</FilesMatch>

I'm not going to pretend I understand all the intricacies of this, but the notice I got from my hosting provider about the PHP changes gave some clues. They've switched from the PHP Apache module to a CGI-based installation of PHP. There was a hint that to make PHP work, you need to use the AddHandler directive, so a bit more digging around suggested that switching from ForceType to SetHandler would probably have the same effect under the new installation, and hey presto, it worked! Fingers crossed, everything is back to normal - sorry for any disruption in service.

So, if you're having problems with FancyURLs not working in Nucleus CMS, then try the above - obviously you'll need to make the change for each entry in the .htaccess file (and for each .htaccess file if you're running blogs in multiple directories). Good luck!

I wanted to know when new accounts were being created on my blog software (Nucleus), and when people were logging in to it. As this wasn't available in the core Nucleus functionality, I've written a plugin, called NP_Paranoia, to do this. Very roughly, it sends an email when a new account is created, when an account is deleted, when a successful login occurs, and when a failed login occurs. Each of these can be turned on and off as required, and they can also be recorded along with the requesting IP address in the Action Log.

Let me know if you use it and it's any use, and if there's any other features you would like, I might be able to accomodate them as well.

Well, at long last we've arrived and are back online. For those of you who don't know, Jenny accepted a job offer up in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, so I quit my job at Orange, and a couple of weeks ago we packed up everything, had it loaded into the back of a lorry, and drove up overnight to arrive on Lewis a couple of weeks back. We're mostly unpacked, Jenny's started and is enjoying her new job, and I've finally got broadband back up and running. I'm sure there's loads of stuff still to do, but we're mostly there.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do. I suspect the job opportunities in the Western Isles are rather more limited than they were back in Yorkshire, but there's a few possibilities around, including a complete change of career. I'm off to see the job centre tomorrow, so I'll see what they have to suggest.

Right, that's it for now. Guess I better go look for work...

Last Saturday (14 June 2008) was the inaugural Octopush North East (ONE) Cup tournament in Newcastle, with teams from York, Durham and Newcastle. Due to circumstances, both the York and Newcastle teams pooled together to field single teams in the cup, unlike in the league where York played an A and B team (in no particular order of merit), and Jesmond and Byker were competing separately. With only 3 teams, and a full 2-hour pool session, matches were played 15 minutes each way. Getting our excuses in early, we (York) only managed to get a squad of 6 players to the tournament, so we found it hard going with no substitutes.

Up first was York against Newcastle. This started quite well for York, but the tiredness soon came into play, along with the fact that we've only played once since before Easter due to loss of our pool (again, lining our excuses up...). Despite York's best efforts, Newcastle romped ahead to a decisive first victory.

The second match, to give York a bit of time to recover, was Durham versus Newcastle. A closer match, but still Newcastle came through as victors.

The final game was York versus Durham. The first half went Durham's way, but by the second half, despite the fatigue, York started coming together as a team again, and were slowly dragging themselves back into the game. However, Durham got their second wind in the last minutes of the game, and managed to hold York off to win 10-7.

Undisputed champions were therefore Newcastle, with Durham taking second place and York third. Congratulations to Newcastle, well done to everyone who played, and a big "thank you" to everyone involved in organising it (Jamie and Gareth, I suspect) for making it a fantastic event - hopefully to be repeated next year!

Good news at last. This Saturday, 14 June, sees octopush returning to York. It's been a bad year all told for the university club, loosing pool time at the start of the academic year due to maintenance, and there's only been one session now since before Easter. But, at last, we've got pool time from 16.30 to 17.30 at Yearsley Swimming Pool.

Even better news: we're now starting up a junior club as well to cater for under 16s. Although we've had a couple of under 16s come along to play with us, I suspect it's quite daunting being 12 and faced with the uni team bearing down on you (Ali excepted, of course!). The junior session is on at the same time, 16.30 to 17.30, also at Yearsley - it's a 50 yard pool, so the uni club has the deep end and the juniors the shallow end. More details at the York Octopush website.

Finally, it's the ONE Cup this Saturday up in Newcastle. I've no more details than that, but I'm sure York will avenge some of their earlier defeats to bring the inaugural cup to Yorkshire!