I am a bit behind on postings lately, but I have been meaning to post about another iPlayer development. Its now available through a streaming service, based on flash. This helps people on non-microsoft platforms access the content. It is also quick and easy to use, if you have a quick ish connection (Its ok on my 1mb ADSL). Good Work BBC.
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
Merry Christmas Everyone!
When moving hosting provider, you may need to move a dataase. Here are the commands I have used on a linux box to shift a MySQL database from one server to another.
To export the database:
mysqldump -h DBSERVER -u DBUSER -p DBNAME > DBNAME.sql
Substituting DBSERVER with the hosts adddress, DBUSER with your MySQL username on the current server and DBNAME with your database name. You will be prompted for your password, after you will have a file in the current working directory called DBNAME.sql containing your entire database.
To import the database:
mysql -h DBSERVER -u DBUSER -p DBNAME > DBNAME.sql
Again substituting DBSERVER, DBUSER and DBNAME but thistime with your new servers information. You can also change the database name and user at this point, providing the change is reflected in your web apps config.
There is a long story behind it, but basically a few drips of water got into my server. I had left it on the bench with the lid off. A drip must have landed on the RAID card, it then dribbled down the card and into the PCI slot. This shorted the card and killed the server.
There was quite a smell of plastic and PCB as you may guess from the photo. End result, one trashed server motherboard and RAID card, and a question mark over all my files on the RAID array.
I have built a replacement box and moved my main two drives over. They are an IDE LVM Group with the OS installed, with a little reconfiguration the system came back up. I then needed to try and rescue my data RAID array. The data array is a 250gb mirror, connected to the fried card.
I took one of the drives from the array and placed it in another system. I then booted into knoppix and mounted the drive. SUCCESS! I found all my data intact. I then messed around for a while copying all the home directories back to the main server drives in the new server, all but my main documents folder (as its massive!).
I now need to get a replacement RAID card and fit it into the new server. Then rebuild the array, move files around, and mount as /home once more.
As I type, I am running a quick backup, just to be safe.
Click on the photo to get a better look.
There are a number of messages working their way around social networking sites like facebook, here is an example:
“If some boy called bum_tnoo7@hotmail.com adds u don’t accept it because its a hacker!!
Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on your list adds them u get them on your list he’ll figure out Your ID computer address, so copy and paste this message to everyone even if u don’t care for them and fast cause if he hacks their email he hacks your mail too!!!”
Advice as ever is not to add people as a “friend” that you don’t know offline. That said messages like this should not just be forwarded, as with similar emails that are common place, its best to research them. These are normally Hoax or Spam messages.
This one is a hoax, see: http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/facebook_hacker.html
If your a user of the BBC’s Web Services and you run Linux, now is the time to stand up and be counted. I use linux every day as do I use the BBC’s Website.
In a recent statement, it was said that out of the 17.1 million users, only 400 to 600 of them run linux. I can’t believe this is true, nor can many others.
It could be any number of things, including someone getting the wrong number of zeros or a mistake when running the report. Of these 17.1 million users, 5% are Mac and 400 to 600 are Linux. I wonder, how many are windows, and how many are “other”… This could well be where some of the linux users are. The assumption is made that the rest are all Windows users, but that may not be true.
You can read the article here, and sign the petition to say you run linux and visit the bbc website here.
Stand up and be counted as a BBC Linux User, and help enable access to new streaming and download services (like iPlayer) under linux.
Microsoft’s latest coffee table, would like to see one of these, but expect they are rather costly!
Check out the videos on the Microsoft Surface webpage.
I have finally got around to doing some upgrades yesterday.
First off at work I upgraded my system from Kubuntu Fistey Fawn 7.04 to Gutsy Gibbon 7.10
I found the following command useful to check the version of my system “lsb_release -a”, both before and after the upgrade.
user@desktop:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 7.10 Release: 7.10 Codename: gutsy user@desktop:~$
I followed the instructions to upgrade on the release page, and on the whole these worked. Although after the full upgrade, I did have to turn off “Recommended Updates” and “Proposed Updates”. Then I had to reboot, turn them back on and reload the update list to get the “Version Upgrade” option.
Other than that, the upgrade ran through with no problems at all!
I also did the same upgrade on the Ubuntu Fistey Install, on the laptop. That went through a dream, it installed a few updates, said it needed to reboot, then it said “Distribution Upgrade Available”, I clicked install, job done.
Next on the cards was WordPress
I upgraded from WordPress 2.2.2 to WordPress 2.3 with no problems, and in double quick time! WordPress upgrades are so straight forward. I have just seen the announcement for WordPress 2.3.1, so I also just downloaded and installed that. Great, No Problems! So I am on the latest 2.3.1.
BBC iPlayer has only been available for users of Windows to date, and currently that is still the case. However, with a number of movements since the launch of iPlayer beta, we may soon see a change. There is no promise of delivering iPlayer to non-Windows users, but according to the BBC Trust, there is a need for iPlayer “platform neutrality”.
There is are moves to offer streaming video services to mulitpul platforms. The adoption & usage of these streaming services by users running non-Windows operating systems, may well decide the future of iPlayer. Streaming serivces being available on Linux and Mac would be great, but you would have to be online and streaming at the time. For a number of people this is a great addition but not a replacement for being able to download the content and watch when ready.
All this talk from the BBC and others is great, but it all comes down to content protection. If there is no DRM system available that meets the needs of the ‘rights holders’, then the BBC will not be able to implement iPlayer on any other platforms. The need to manage what happens to content is the main priority, not access to it.
2000 – VHS Tape, record, keep, watch, Lockin? The fact its on a tape
2007 – iPlayer, download, keep for a restricted amount of time, watch then deleted within a week, Lockin? Format, OS, DRM, Player, and so on…
Lets not get started on DRM now, Just read: DefectiveByDesign: What is DRM?
Who’s rights? Do content authors have the right to protect their content to this degree? Who paid for what? (License fees go to the BBC, the BBC make or buy content, who owns what? If your paying the bill shouldn’t you have a say?) Do you still have the right to watch the content?
If viewers lose rights at this rate, who will be allowed to see content in another 7 years? Just the company that made it??? Or maybe we will have a Set Top Box for each content author, that allows us to watch each program once, and then deletes it. Then when their ‘box’ breaks we can pay them to come and look at it, and then buy a new one from them because its beyond repair. With a nice monthly fee and the box self destructing when you cancel your contract….
Defective By Design
iPlayer Petition
iPlayer Petition – Response
BBC News: Government backs Trust on iPlayer
BBC News: BBC ‘must offer iPlayer for all’
BBC News: BBC online to go free over wi-fi
“Jottit makes getting a website as easy as filling out a textbox.” That’s a statement from their webpage, and its true. The simplicity of this site is just great, It makes posting content online so easy. This is really worth a look!
Developments like this open the web up to users with much less technical experience, yes you can sign up for a blog or social network with a provider, but this is different.