Clearing Drupal 7 Cache Manually

After killing bfclife.co.uk I needed to manually clear the cache to get back on it, after Googling forever I couldn't find out how.  So I did it manually, once connected to the database I ran

TRUNCATE TABLE cache


Problem solved :-)

Pandora Internet Radio

Its been a while since I've blogged anything geeky so here we go with a bit of information about Pandora internet radio.  Pandora is a US internet radio service that is really clever, you give it an artist or song title and it creates a virtual radio station with similar music.  You will be amazed at how well it works, your favorite song title will produce a selection of music that is just your taste, read on

Rome the End

Worst day so far, home time!! Had a really good night in the irish bar last night, it was rammed for the rugby. This is my last entry and I don't want it to be, don't get me wrong i miss my boys but I would do anything for a few more days. I now have to try and sum up Rome in such a manner that you all book trips to come here immediately. Rome is mental, awesome, magnificent, stupendous, breath taking, wowiful......rubbish, don't go, see if I care. For anybody reading that has enjoyed my light hearted wittering but can not tolerate self obsessing soul searching shite please skip the next few paragraphs and go straight to the acknowledgements (of which there are none as all the people and places in my blog are fictitious and any similarities to real people/places are purely coincidental).

Rome Day 5

Day 5, like I said yesterday today is Angels and Demons day and this is my penultimate Rome blog. I will warn you now that today has been a pretty busy day so standby for a blog and a half. For anybody that hasn't read the book, watched the film or both I will quickly outline the plot otherwise the whole of today won't make much sense. Before I do I must point out that i am more of a catholic than a historian, so please take my ramblings with a pinch of salt. If you stumble across this blog and intend to use any part of it for anything other than light hearted toilet reading please dont acknowledge me, i dont know what i am talking about. The main character in Dan Browns book is a symbologist named Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in the films. In Angels and Demons Robert langdon is called to vatican city following the death of the pope. In addition 4 cardinals, the favourites to succeed the pope known as the Perferiti, have been kidnapped. At the large hadron collider in Geneva a canister containing anti matter, potentially more destructive than a nuclear blast, has been stolen and hidden somewhere inside vatican city. The ancient secret group, the Illuminati are claiming responsibility for all the events and are threatening to execute the four cardinals every hour starting at 8pm. At midnight the suspended antimatter, currently suspended in mid air, will collide with matter and destroy the whole of vatican city. How exciting!!! So the four cardinals are to be executed at four points along the mythical path of illumination and Robert Langdon is on a race against time to discover the four points and ultimately the location of the anti matter.

Rome day 4

So it's day 4 and I forgot to set an alarm so spent most of the morning in bed, oops!!! It came to my attention yesterday that I had at least 5 readers and i'm now feeling the pressure to produce the goods. As I havent done anything this morning I will talk briefly about the crazy traffic situation. For anybody thinking about travelling to Rome you should be aware of the traffic situation in order to remain alive. There are two types of crossing in rome, pedestrian crossings and zebra crossings. And there are two types of drivers, those that are actually trying to kill you and those that do a pretty good impression of the first type. First up the pedestrian crossing, the same as in England with one significant difference, the green man doesn't mean that nobody is going to try and kill you. They are safer than the zebra crossings but it's a false sense of security. The zebra crossings are marked in the same way as the ones in England however, cars will not stop to allow you to cross and normally they won't stop whilst your crossing until the very last minute and leave you in no doubt that if they could've got away with it they would have enjoyed ending your life. So when crossing roads either close your eyes and run like hell or don't and just see one side of Rome!!

Rome Day 3

So day three, when I woke this morning a number of thoughts went through my head. First, what the hell is that noise, second, I am going to vatican city today, third, I have to go dressed as a nun and finally, fourth, how much did I have to drink last night. So I went back to sleep!!!! Eventually I dragged my sorry little arse out of bed and started a day I was very much looking forward to. It is probably worth explaining that I am in no way a catholic but you've got to admit the pope is pretty cool. Like i said today is vatican city day, I decided to take the advice of my mother in law and walk most of the way. For anyone reading that hasn't met my mother in law and doesn't know me that well, I don't normally take advice because I am too pig headed and my mother in law normally gives shit advice, haha! But on this occasion it was good advice, I got the metro to termini and then walked to vatican city. I adopted a slightly different approach to navigation today and used a map, anybody reading that hasn't come across one of these map things before (most blokes) trust me they're not a bad bit of kit, even though you do like a bloody idiot tourist!!

End of day 2

In my opinion OMG is, after LOL, the most misused TLA in use but I can honestly say that OMG doesn't start to describe Rome. Most of the things I have seen today are not in a tourist area, they are not like Washington, a city designed for tourists, they are real. Some would say that Rome like the arc of constantine are living in the past but I disagree, I think Rome is just very aware of the fact that it has more history than other city in the world. Subsequently this means you get a mix of a modern city engulfed in a breath taking history tour, what will tmrw bring !!

Rome day 2

Day 2 up early and out to do some sight seeing, first stop the colosseum. Mistake numero uno, the metro at 8-9 in the morning is rammed. Mistake number 2 trusting my sense of direction to find the next metro station, an hour walk lead me in a circle back to Bologna metro station. By the way the metro offer various tickets but for €1 you get 75 minutes of travel, enough to get anywhere unless you have my sense of direction. Eventually I arrived at coloseo metro station and was not expecting to walk out and see the colosseum. But that is exactly what happened, the best view of the colosseum from outside is from the north side where the third floor is still in tact and that is exactly where the metro station is. Breath taking is an under statement, the place is magnificent. At the colosseum I purchased a roma pass, this costs €25 and gets you free entrance to the first two attractions, discounted entrance to everywhere else and includes travel on the public transport system for 3 days. The entrance to the colosseum costs €12 by itself, so well worth it. I downloaded a number of audio guides for attractions in Rome so spent a few hours in the colosseum listening to those and wandering around the immense grave of roman culture.

Rome blog

So I have decided to blog my experience in Rome, i decided this when I saw the colosseum and thought I don't want to forget this. Right so I flew from Cyprus on Czech airlines to prague and then on to Rome. It was an epic journey with a 5 hour stop in prague airport but the cost of the flight more than compensated for the journey. The whole trip, including flights and hotel cost me £350. I am staying in hotel casa santa about 1km from Bologna Metro station. The hotel is very reasonable, not the best hotel i have ever stayed in but for the price more than ok. The hotel includes a breakfast of pastries, rolls, meats, cheeses and coffee. Wifi is available in the hotel for a charge of €6 per 24 hour period.

So i have arrived in the hotel at about 5pm and promptly showered and went exploring. Exploring for a pub, oh dear, Rome has an abudance of cafe bars, these are anything from a shop that also serves drinks to restraurants. But none are pubs, it took me an hour to find a pub in the form of an Irish bar. Nice little place, bar staff didn't speak much english but they served pints and the burger I had in there was something else.

CouchPotato

Do you use SickBeard with SABnzbd???  If so you need to check out CouchPotato, this little app will keep an eye out for any Movies you have been waiting for, snatch them and send them to SAB, awesome.  Loads of little features for quality settings, etc.  Check it out

Windows Download

Newsgroup Downloading

An alternative to using Torrents to download stuff is Newsgroup downloading

BBC iPlayer on PS3 outside of UK

I have tried a few different proxy servers and VPN's to access both UK and US based TV on demand services but wanted to use the PS3 to access the BBC iPlayer.  If you want to access the BBC iPlayer and other TV on demand services then read on.

Cyprus Cyta Internet using own router

I have spent many hours trying to configure my own router to work with Cyta Internet in Cyprus and today I was successful.  It turns out it is really easy and means you no longer have to put up with the rubbish Thompson TG585 supplied from Cyta (and I think you get a discount for using your own equipment if you return the Thompson one).

Renewing Car Tax in Cyprus

Unlike most things in Cyprus renewing you car tax is relatively straight forward when you know how.  Car tax expires at the end of December or June regardless of when you first taxed your vehicle.  First go to:-

https://www.jccsmart.com/index.aspx?ci=en-GB

Click on car tax, you may need to create an account.

Then enter you vehicle registration and the last 3 numbers of your vehicle registration number, this can be found on you vehicle registration document (all in Greek, on mine it was C.9 and was the last three numbers of my service number but might be your passport number).  Then enter your payment details and print out the tax disc.

Easy

IPod Touch Recovered after accidental hard reset

Today I stupidly did a hard reset on my IPod Touch, after just completing a half marathon.  I desperately wanted the run data in Nike + IPod to sync but my itunes wanted to restore my ipod (clearing all data).  Using the blackra1n jail breaking software I managed to re-jailbreak it and it restarted as if I had never accidentally done a hard reset, result!!

Sony Vaio VGN-AW21XY Laptop Dies and Comes back to live

Yesterday my Sony  suddenly took a nose dive in to the laptop grave, I have only had about 10 months so was less than impressed.  The stupid thing just died, power failed and every time I tried to power it back up it would just power off again a few seconds later.  If I left it for an hour it would last a couple of minutes before powering off so I assumed it was something to do with the battery or charger.  Tried running it with no battery, same result, tried running it just on battery, same result.

XBMC Remote

Had to post about XBMC Remote from collect3, if you have XBMC running on any device and own an ipod touch or iPhone this is a must have app. The app basically uses the http server functionality built in to XBMC to control XBMC. A remote control I hear you say, no, much more than a remote control. With this app you can see your whole media library, control XBMC in many ways and do it all from anywhere in the house (or world). The fun part of this means you can freak everyone out by stopping and starting playback from the kitchen but the serious part means when your young kids disturb you to come and put a different film on and you are upstairs, whip out the trusty ipod and start a new film, happy kids, happy you!!!

Wireless Wake On LAN (WWOL)

Having just started using XBMC remote on my ipod touch I wanted to use the wake on LAN feature. I have a Sony Vaio VGN-AW21XY that uses an Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN wireless chipset, it spends a lot of time plugged in to my TV. It was relatively straight forward to set up WWOL, I went to the properties for the network device in device manager and under Power Management enabled "Allow this device to wake the computer". I then put the MAC address in to the setting on XBMC remote, disabled require password on wakeup in windows and then rebooted.


Now starting XBMC remote on the ipod wakes the laptop up and as long as XBMC is running I have full control.

Windows Vista Folder Size

I am sure alot of people are already aware of foldersize, an awesome little program to add a foldersize column to windows explorer:-

http://sourceforge.net/projects/foldersize

Biggest problem with foldersize is that it doesn't work with Vista/Windows 7, I have recently got to the stage on my C drive where I have little remaining space but can't find where all the space is being used. Short of going through every folder to find my missing hard drive space I needed to find a solution, I wanted to find something similar to the Disk Usage Analyzer in Ubuntu. There are tons of programs out there but I decided I wanted to use the Disk Usage Analyzer in Ubuntu.

Welcome to my blog

I have decided to start a blog for two reasons, the first to keep track of stuff I get up to. A lot of this will be computer/gadget related stuff, I am always figuring out how to do things and then 2 months later forgetting what I did. And secondly to share hours of searching on the net with other people. Please feel free to leave comments