Noodles’ Blog

I had been searching for approximate frost dates for Auckland to help schedule veggie plantings. Luckily the people at NIWA are nice and respond very quickly to emails. I was told that ground frosts are days where grass minimum temperature are less than -1.0 degree C. Screen frosts are when the air temperature dips below 0.0 degrees C.

Using NIWA’s free data explorer tool “Cliflo” and the closest weather station to me I came up with the following data:

2009
First Frost: 2009-04-10
Last Frost: 2009-09-09

2008
First Frost: 2008-04-21
Last Frost: 2008-09-07

2007
First Frost: 2007-05-29
Last Frost: 2007-10-04

2006
First Frost: 2006-05-31
Last Frost: 2006-09-19

2005
First Frost: 2005-04-22
Last Frost: 2005-09-03

2004
First Frost: 2004-05-21
Last Frost: 2004-09-30

2003
First Frost: 2003-04-26
Last Frost: 2003-10-27

2002
First Frost: 2002-07-14
Last Frost: 2002-10-24

2001
First Frost: 2001-05-29
Last Frost: 2001-09-29

2000
First Frost: 2000-06-14
Last Frost: 2000-09-29

This averages out to:

First Frost: May 19
Last Frost: September 27

Hopefully this helps the local gardeners. Join me on Folia

I had to create an ODBC datasource for an access database on my Windows 7 machine and for some reason the *.mdb driver doesn’t show up in the control panel ODBC administrator.

After much swearing and google-ing I found the solution.

In C:\windows\sysWOW64 there is an executable called odbcad32.exe. You need to run this exe as administrator to gain access to all the ODBC drivers that come with Microsoft Office, etc.

Thanks Microsoft for another fine product!

With more and more people moving towards using a global DNS system (like Google DNS and OpenDNS) the speed advantages of a CDN may be cancelled out.

Most of the major CDNs use geotargeting based on where the DNS is being resolved from. For example Facebook’s CDN solution (using Akamai) resolves static.ak.fbcdn.net to 210.55.501.200, a 5ms response time. Using Google’s public DNS server (8.8.8.8) the same domain resolves to 72.246.43.42, 72.246.43.32, a 200ms response time.

So while using Google’s DNS/OpenDNS may save a few ms while resolving a domain, it may slow down a site by putting the CDN pops further away from end users. Until CDN’s can work with these public DNS providers the internet may become slower for those using these services.

We just recieved a couple of new computers today, shiny new Dell Studio XPS 435MT boxes. As everyone here still runs XP 32bit I decided to reinstall the new computers with the same OS, so we didn’t run into any compatability problems. The problem is Dell doesn’t support any other operating systems on these computers other than Vista 64bit!

After searching around the internet for a couple of hours I found the drivers needed, they are as follows:

Network (Intel 82567):
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=3003&DwnldID=4275&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng

Chipset (Intel X58):
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=816&OSFullName=Windows*+XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

Graphics (ATI Radeon 4850):
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

Audio (Realtek HD Audio):
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3

I hope this helps anyone with a similar problem

The Webby Awards are upon us again for the 13th year. It’s ironic though that awards that celebrate the best on the internet have one of the worst designed sites. The Webby People’s Voice site (http://pv.webbyawards.com) is hard to register on and vote. This has discouraged a lot of people from voting for their favourite websites.

I had to find out the size of all our images on a site today. This was the easiest and fastest way to do it

Here's a great list of photography resources: http://mashable.com/2007/06/23/photography-toolbox/

Add your imob friend code to the comments and I'll add you

My code is 100 631 009 (also for iKnights)

If you haven't installed iMob yet, search for it on the itunes store and install it on your iPhone for free.

Update: Comments are now closed, there are over 1200 people posting here and it takes ages to page through them all. If you want your code added to this post (at the top) please donate $2 via paypal:

Add your code into the comments of the payment and I'll add it. Limited to 100 places. This is highly ranked page for imob codes and gets a ton of traffic, you'll get added by hundreds of users (I've been added by 2300 people).

Other codes to add:

268-154-383
165-281-454
123-643-569
142-622-107
162-023-523
163-976-612
179-594-415

Learn about freezer jam and how to make it. I hadn't heard of it before, but apparently it's quite a popular way to make jams these days. Saves a lot of time.

Recipes:

Strawberry Freezer Jam
Blueberry Freezer Jam

I've been battling with Webmin trying to get SSLv2 turned off so I can comply with Hackersafe/McAfee Secure.

I managed to do it this morning, this is how I did it:

- Upgrade to version 1.430
- Webmin -> Webmin Configuration -> SSL Encryption
- Enter HIGH:-SSLv2:-aNULL into the Allowed SSL Ciphers field (new as of 1.430)
- Restart Webmin

You can check that SSLv2 is disabled by running this from the shell/command line:
openssl s_client -connect localhost:10000 -ssl2

If you get lines like these, SSLv2 is disabled:
419:error:1407F0E5:SSL routines:SSL2_WRITE:ssl handshake failure:s2_pkt.c:428:
420:error:1406D0B8:SSL routines:GET_SERVER_HELLO:no cipher list:s2_clnt.c:450:

For some reason Sixxs.net seems to be down. I'm unable to connect my IPV6 tunnels to their PoP's or connect to their website. Does anyone have any idea why they're offline?

Update: Seems to be back up now. It's safe to restart your aiccu now

I'm doing an experiment with Google Knol, so I've written a Knol about back pain

I will post the results of this test later on.

For some reason the iPhone 3G will not connect to this wireless router. There has been talk that this is fixed in the latest firmware but as of writing this it is not fixed in the latest AU/NZ firmware (1.00.23).

I found a temporary solution for the problem though. If you limit your router to 802.11B only then the iPhone will connect without a problem. As soon as it's changed to mixed network or 802.11G only then it will fail to connect.

Update: I've found that the AU firmware from the AU linksys site works fine on the NZ WAG54Gv3. I'm using 1.00.46 and the iPhone 3G now connects under 802.11G without a problem.

Tv3 reported on this the other night, but I can't find a link to the video clip. Apparently from July 1st, 2008 postcodes must be used when sending bulk mail to receive discounts. This is to force bulk mailers to move over to the new system which can be read easier by NZ Post.

According to the news clip residentual mail may also be affected by this change over. Mail can be lost in the mail system for months if the wrong/old postcode is used. Examples were given where there are ~18 Beach Rd's in Auckland. Using the correct postcode allows mail sorters to send your letter to the right one.

More information here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10519552

I've just started a new blog about antioxidants and good health.

You can find it here: Antioxidant Smart

Recently dnsstuff.com started charging for all their services and have doubled their prices. I know they're a business, but this move will force people away from their site onto other services.

So I've been looking for an alternative to dnsstuff.com for a while and came across this: http://dnssy.com/
It seems to have similar reports and is good for debugging your DNS setup.

As a few people have pointed out in the comments there was an error in the initial release of the V2 postcode database, the suburb data had been lost along the way.

I've fixed the problem and updated the bzip2 and gzip files. I've also removed the mssql version as it never worked anyway. I'm not sure if the problem affects the csv version and I don't have time to look at it now.

Enjoy.

I've just set up a lens on Squidoo.com about Verizon Wireless

It's still a work in progress, but there's some interesting information there.

I'm just trying out a new method to optimize vBulletin's front end scripts and CSS. It's still a work in progress but these are the results I have seen on my test site (www.wirelessforums.org)

Without GZIP

Base VB (v3.6.8)

vbulletin_global.js - 43.8KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 17.8KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 6.7KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 9.6KB

JS total - 77.9KB

css - 5.7KB

Using minify

vbulletin_global.js - 23KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 10.4KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 3.3KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 6KB

JS total - 42.7 (45.1% savings)

css - 4.1K (28% savings)

With GZIP

Base VB (v3.6.8)

vbulletin_global.js - 12.5KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 4.7KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 2KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 3.3KB

JS total - 22.5KB

css - 1.3KB

Using minify and GZIP

vbulletin_global.js - 6.9KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 2.7KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 1KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 2.1KB

JS total - 12.7KB

This is an extra 43.5% savings on top of GZIP. A total of 65.2KB (83.7%) savings from the original.

css - 1.1KB

An extra 15.3% savings on top of GZIP. A total of 4.6KB (80.7%) savings from the original.

This is a huge improvement over the original file sizes and speeds up rendering of the page quite a bit. The new method doesn't require you to download JS replacements for each version of vB, instead it works off the existing files. Hopefully this will silence the people who complained about copyright/piracy issues with me distributing the JS files (even though they're distributed to every browser that downloads the page).

I'm also looking at some other ways to speed up rendering as much as possible. Stay tuned for downloads and a full write up.

I've done a bit of work on the database, added a bit of information and corrected mistakes.

Thanks to Owen and others for help with the data.

If you find this data useful, please donate.

What's new in V2

• More accurate
• Added GPS co-ordinates
• Added PO Boxes and Private Bags
• Added Rural postcodes
• Removed regions (as some datasources labeled a city/town as one region and others differed.)

I've also taken the opportunity to include CSV and MSSQL formats, as well as MySQL.

History

I originally created the database as I needed street and suburb data for a project I was doing. No one else was stupid enough to spend that much time on it, so I took it on. NZ Post still has their PAF data, but are unlikely to release a free database of the postcodes.

Original Post
More info on NZ Addresses

Downloads

MySQL
nzpostcodes_v2.sql.gz (655KB)
nzpostcodes_v2.sql.bz2 (445KB)

CSV
nzpostcodes_v2.csv.zip (1.07MB)

All efforts have been made to ensure that there are no errors, but there are no guarantees, if you need 100% accurate data please buy NZ Post’s PAF data.

[UPDATE 20/04/08]
As a few people have pointed out, there was no suburb data in the MySQL database version of the postcode database. This has now been fixed. Sorry about the problems and how long it's taken me to get around to fixing it.

I realized today that vBulletin's Javascript was just too bulky and didn't really need to be, especially when you have no plans to customize it yourself. So I grabbed all the packages of 3.6.x and minimized all the Javascript. In most cases the Javascript files are 50% of the original, which saves bandwidth and speeds up the loading of your forum.

Install:

• Backup all the .js files from the clientscript directory under your forum root.
• Copy the files from zip file that matches your version of vBulletin into the clientscript directory.
• Done!

Download:

vBulletin 3.6.0
vBulletin 3.6.1
vBulletin 3.6.2
vBulletin 3.6.3
vBulletin 3.6.4
vBulletin 3.6.5
vBulletin 3.6.6
vBulletin 3.6.7PL1
vBulletin 3.6.8

I'm always getting grief from my managers about not testing in IE6, which is hard when IE7 is installed on all machines these days. I recently found a little install tool which allows you to run multiple versions of IE on the same machine. It doesn't fully install IE, just the dll's and uses dll redirection to trick windows into running an older version of IE.

Although it's not perfect, it's a lot easier than running a virtual PC for each version.

The install can be found here: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

I've just received some data from Owen for RD and PO Box postcodes, so I'll be added these into the database.

Also, stay tuned for Long/Lat coordinates for streets and postcodes.

I managed to figure out how to monitor Apache with Big Brother and LARRD. As it's not very well documented I thought I'd share it with everyone.

First set your apache server to display status in the apache httpd.conf:

Setting extended status to On does slow down the server a little bit, but it's usually not noticeable. Remember to limit access to the status page to just the IP where your Big Brother server is monitoring from.

Add apache to @DATALIST in larrd-config.pl

Then in your apache-larrd.pl (under the larrd directory) you'll need to hardcode the servers you want to monitor.

The first part of the host_h array is to identify which server to attach the RRD file with. In this instance I'm monitoring a server called server01 and the website I have setup with the server-status page is http://www.youresite.com/server-status?auto. If your host is a FQDN (fully qualified domain name) then you can omit the full url and just have /server-status?auto and Big Brother will work out the URL.

With any luck you'll have 4 new graphs on your trends/LARRD page.

I found a good page which outlines which characters can be used in email addresses:

http://www.remote.org/jochen/mail/info/chars.html