Techno Thoughts!

If you have a high load on your web server, it’s useful to be able to see a list of the current connections on port 80 as sometimes high load can be caused by someone abusing the site - for example scraping it or some kind of denial of service attack.

This code will show a list of the ip’s currently connected to your server on port 80 with a count of the number of connections to the left of it. It’s ordered by the number of connections - highest first:

netstat -ntulpa | grep :80 | awk '{print $5}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort -n | uniq -c | sort -n -r

I mentioned in a previous post that you could call 0800 numbers free from a mobile using a free service provided by Localphone.

They have now released another free service which gives free, quick and easy conference calls: ConferenceBuster.

If you want to have more than 1 person on a call to someone, all you do is go to: http://www.conferencebuster.co.uk, click the button and it gives you a phone number and pin.

You give the other person the phone number and pin and dial it yourself.

It’s free and the number to dial is a normal 01xxx number so will come out of your free minutes on your mobile for example.

Came across a very nifty utility for web developers - it’s called IETester.

It’s a web browser which allows you to open up different tabs for different versions of Internet Explorer all at the same time.

You can view IE 5, IE6, IE7 and IE8.

It seems to fall down with some complicated Javascript but it’s great for testing how a site renders in the different versions or as usual, sorting out IE6 problems!

It’s freeware and you can download it here.

Apple just announced the new ‘iPhone 3G S’ at it’s WWDC 2009 conference.

The S stands for ‘Speed’ and the new iPhone will contain the following new features:

• Faster
• 3 mega-pixel camera with auto focus and auto macro
• Video recording and editing
• Voice commands
• A digital compass
• Improved battery life

The exterior of the device will be the same as the current iPhone 3G.

Apple today confirmed, at it’s WWDC 2009 conference that the previously announced 3.0 firmware that has been in beta for the last few months will be released on June 17th.

The update contains many big features such as Copy & Paste and MMS but also includes 100 updates and 1000 new API calls.

Many years ago I remember that 0800 numbers were free to call from mobile phones as well as land lines. That all changed a long time ago though and 0800 numbers are chargable calls - which is annoying when most phone call packages come with plenty of minutes nowadays.

Here is a neat trick though to be able to call 0800 numbers using your inclusive minutes.

1. Go to 0800buster.co.uk

2. Note the number in the top left hand corner of the page (this is randomly displayed from their pool of numbers so if one doesn’t work, just refresh and try another!)

3. Store it in your mobile for when you need to dial an 0800.

To call an 0800 you can now call that 0800buster number and enter the 0800 you would like to call, followed by #

You can even store numbers in your phone book by using the pause function on your mobile - see the 0800buster site for details

There have been several rumours recently about the spec of the next, rumoured iPhone.

The Apple iPhone Apps site has given a good roundup and review of them - see here. All sounds plausible to me - certainly along the lines of what I was thinking!

* 32GB and 16GB to replace current capacities
* $199 and $299 price-points to be maintained
* 3.2 Megapixel camera
* Video recording & editing capabilities
* Ability to send a picture & video via MMS
* Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
* OLED screen
* 1.5X The battery life
* Double the RAM and processing power
* Built-in FM transmitter
* Apple logo on the back to light up
* Rubber-tread backing
* Sleeker design
* Built-in compass
* Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps to identify photo and inform about photo locations.
* Turn by turn directions
* July 17th, 2009 release date

The article also

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - I was on holiday in Florida for 2 weeks in April (and getting packed etc for it before) and then since we got back i’ve been getting over the jet lag and sorting & packing up to move house. We are still waiting for a moving date but hopefully it should be in the next week or so.

Will do some more blog posts soon!

Days after a great 1st race of the season where Jenson Button drove an excellent race and drove from a great pole position to win the race with a Brawn 1-2, the whole race is surrounded in controversy.

The problem is not with Jenson Button but with Lewis Hamilton. Lewis drove a really good race in a car which was way off the pace. He kept out of trouble, kept pushing and with the events of a late crash by 2nd placed Vettel and 3rd placed Kubica he ended up in 4th place. The odd thing at the time was that when the safety car came out, Lewis was showing in 3rd position (I had the live timing on) and then at the end of the race he was in 4th, even though overtaking is not allowed under the safety car.

It turned out what had happened was Trulli was in 3rd and had gone off the track and Lewis had obviously gone past, hence showing in 3rd. Trulli then took the place back, which is why he finished in 3rd and got the podium.

After the race however, Lewis said that his team had told him to let Trulli back through (and Trulli said that Hamilton had slowed down, allowing him to pass as he thought Hamilton had a problem) and later on after a stewards enquiry, Trulli was given a penalty for passing under the safety car and Lewis was promoted to 3rd – an excellent result when his car was so far off the pace.

The problem is, it didn’t finish there. On the Thursday after the race, the stewards summoned Hamilton and Trulli back in and after more investigation have disqualified Hamilton (and Mclaren) for misleading the stewards.

It turns out what had happened was that after the above happened, Hamilton and Mclaren both went into the stewards enquiry and told the stewards that they had not let Trulli past.

What doesn’t make sense is that Mclaren knew that the FIA listens to the radio transmissions and had been asking race control several times whether Hamilton had to let Trulli past but did not receive a response because race control were busy dealing with the accident. Why would they lie knowing this information was public? – it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Mclaren claim that they didn’t lie or purposely mislead the stewards but rather just assumed that because the FIA listen to the radio that they knew about the conversation but this seems the opposite to what the FIA are saying.

All very odd!

More information:

• The stewards decision
• Interview with Mclaren
• The Mclaren radio discussion
• FIA response

UPDATE: It doesn’t explain why they lied when they knew the truth was public, but at least this explains what happened: Q&A with Lewis Hamilton - credit to him for standing up and admitting he made a mistake.

There has been talk (and demo videos) for a long time about SlingPlayer on the iPhone (and iPod Touch). It was reported last week that it was finished and had been submitted to the app store for approval.

Now it’s reported that the SlingPlayer for the iPhone will only work on the newer Slingbox models.

What’s more is that apparently it did work in the beta versions and it’s not a hardware thing but a greedy move by Sling to get people to purchase new hardware.

I always did find it frustrating that after buying the device you had to pay for the mobile version of SlingPlayer - but I did buy it for Pocket PC and Symbian as it wasn’t too expensive.

However, I certainly wont be buying new hardware just to get it on the iPhone / iPod and I certainly wont be recommending Slingbox to anyone if they are going to do that

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/04/02/sling-rains-on-its-own-parade/

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/04/02/slingplayer/