The Home of Nick Howell….
Jun 11 2009
I’ve just started using PostgreSQL as my database of choice for a few projects, and needed some way of scheduling backups. As a result I’ve created the following small bash script that will backup a given database and put it in a gzipped tar archive. You can find the script in my svn repository here. [...]
Jun 09 2009
A while ago I rebuilt the video streaming solution at YSTV so that it used flash video. Not wanting to pay for Adobe Media Server, I opted to try and create my own, as it were. I knew that VLC could stream video so I set off to get it to stream flv. Fortunately for [...]
Apr 29 2009
Most of the time this is a relatively trivial exercise. In the majority of cases, simply setting ‘Workbook Calculation’ to ‘Automatic’ in the Excel options will give the desired effect. However, I recently stumbled across a situation where this doesn’t work. If you find yourself entering data into an Excel workbook through some other means [...]
Apr 12 2009
I recently had some fun and games upgrading PostgresSQL on my Gentoo box – I was running 8.2.7 and needed 8.3.x for it’s support of ENUM types. After some googling I found this blog which explained how to do it. There were a few extra steps for me, however, so I though I’d repost my [...]
Jan 06 2008
Firstly, more videos. Hurray. I’ve got a few more videos uploaded in the Videos page. The links are on the left. One of the videos is related to the second point of this post, and that is that it snowed the other day, somewhat of a rare occurrence in this part of the world despite [...]
Dec 30 2007
As the title suggests, there are now videos on my website. The first one has just gone up. It’s a video of a crazy Christmas with my cousins and her children. I’ll be adding more videos as time goes by, so check up on the Videos page (link at the top right) or http://nickhowell.net/videos/ . [...]
Dec 30 2007
Well, as promised here is my little review on my Toshiba Portégé M400. Quite possibly the best purchase i’ve made in a long time. The M400 is known as a Tablet PC, that is, you can rotate the screen and fold it flat so that the screen faces outwards. Combined with the included Pen, you [...]
Dec 30 2007
Well, it’s coming up to the end of 2008, and is just over 3 months since my last post so i figure it’s about time i made another to talk about all the shiney new expensive things i’ve acquired since then. So, starting in September (ish), Uni started again…although that might be October…whatever, the point [...]
Sep 26 2007
Intro Ok, so this is a new little project of mine that I’ve just started. The idea is that I’ll end up with a machine that acts as an internet gateway for my home network with a few added features – Specifically, Traffic Shaping. The reason for this is twofold – firstly, I have [...]
Sep 21 2007
Well, it’s been about 3 months and I finally have internet at my new house (!). It’s been an absolute mission trying to get hold of BT to get the phone line. I would suggest anyone avoid BT if at all possible. They are a nightmare to deal with. After about a month that was [...]
