Odin's Blog

How to access the BBC Iplayer feed from another country

2009-03-16T19:57:00.001+11:00

How to access the BBC Iplayer feed from another country

This post is designed specifically for the formula 1 feeds from Iplayer however since it has been written before these are even publiclly availible, I have tested this method in recent weeks primarillary on Top Gear and it has worked with about a 90% hit rate.

This method is not a simple or quick and easy fix. It takes some decent technical knowledge to implement and it is now at this point that I suggest that if you are not overly technical you should not really proceed.

Approach

This method uses TOR an anonimity network designed to route packets securly through multiple nodes throughout the internet

That pic describes the basic principles behind the routing of TOR it will bounce all your communications through 3 different nodes before getting to the end destination. All traffic between the nodes is completely encrypted and the whole point behind TOR is that it is near on impossible to determine where a packet originated.

You can read more on it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)

The important part for BBC’s Iplayer is the exit node(that is the last node before being routed again onto the public network) we will need to force this to be in the UK. Once that is completed it will appear that we are just residing in the UK like all legimate users of Iplayer.

Tools needed

Vidalia - http://vidalia-project.net/dist/vidalia-bundle-0.2.0.34-0.1.10.exe

This file contains all the software you need to use TOR, it has a graphical control panel, a privacy proxy, and a firefox plugin.

Install proceedure

I am running a beta of Windows 7 so I can not confirm that this will work on every other platform however I see no reason why it won’t.

Download the file above

Run the installation for Vidalia selecting all the default options.

Go to Start -> Run
C:\Windows\system32\Notepad.exe C:\Users\matt\AppData\Roaming\Vidalia\torrc

This will then open a window with the TOR configuartion file

Later I will describe exactly how to source the information to put into here as it does change over time

All that needs to be done now is the following 2 lines added to the bottom of the file

ExitNodes 0000000000Marauder, anonion, anotherlink, colinwillsdorkyahoo, gigatux, znodetor, humph

StrictExitNodes 1

The first line for exitnodes describes 7 known exit nodes in the UK that I have tested to work with the BBC Iplayer

The second line forces TOR to always use these even if a better path is availble (A better path for TOR will most likley not use a exit node in the UK). Save the file.

Open up the Vidalia control panel (It is an onion icon in the taskbar) by right clicking on it in the taskbar and selecting control panel. Click Stop TOR and then once that has completed click Start TOR by this stage it should have read in the new configuration file and will now use the UK exit nodes.

We now need to configure TOR button within Firefox to make sure it works correctly. The TOR button will be loctaed in the bottom right hand coner of the firefox window with red text TOR Disabled right click on this then click on preferences. The settings chosen here are NOT the most secure settings for TOR and I would recommend not using these for if anonimity is your only goal on the internet. However for the purposes of using Iplayer these are the settings that I have found work best.

Once this is setup all you need to do to turn TOR on is left click on the TOR Disabled button this will change it to TOR Enabled.

You should leave TOR disabled at all times except when starting up the Iplayer as web browsing through TOR is very slow and it should only be used as needed.

Watching the content

With TOR disabled go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ find the show that you want to watch and click the play button. You will then be presented with a screen like this

At this point you need to enable TOR and refresh the page, TOR will disable the refresh button so you need to click on the URL and push enter.

You need to be patient at this point as it may take 4 – 5 minutes for the next screen to appear

At this point Click the big Click to play button in the middle of the screen it will take quite a while to buffer up and begin playing the content. Make sure you are patient.

Once the content starts playing pause it and left click once on the TOR Enabled button. After about 10 seconds you will see it change back to TOR disabled. At this point I normally let it buffer the feed for about 1 minute before clicking play. You are now able to watch the feed using your native internet connection. Normally this works pretty smoothly from here in Australia even though I have a pretty slow internet connection.

Problems

This setup is using only a very limited amount of exit nodes in the UK that may come and go or be blocked by the BBC over time. I will try and post regular updates if I find any issues with new working exit nodes. This method is generally a lot harder for the BBC to dectect that just a simple proxy so should be mostly ok.

A smokers look back in time

2007-07-17T22:12:00.000+10:00

Well I need to admit to what appears to be one of modern society’s most carnal sins. I am a smoker. It seems that in western nations we are the most actively discriminated minority there is.

On July 1^st all Victoria smokers were told we are no longer welcome in Pubs and Clubs. Well a beer and a smoke has always gone hand in hand for me so it is horrible to be sent outside in the cold to smoke. This last weekend it was about 5C outside where hundreds of drunk smokers were crowed on the streets and balconies fulfilling their additions.

Being stuck outside made me want to remember the good times. On that note it is time to view some of the best smoking ads ever made.

Thanks

Matt

"A winston tastes good like a smoke should"

"More doctors choose Camel"

"Thinking mans filter a smoking mans taste"

I have no idea what this one was about

"To a smoker its the taste of kent"

"SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE! (THAT CIGARETTE)"

And just to present both sides of the story here is a non smoking ad

Drink Driving Case Tomorrow

2007-07-16T20:12:00.000+10:00

Ok I am very excited. As I mentioned a few months ago I lost my license for drink driving well tomorrow is the first hearing. I know that in the Victorian legal systems the chance of getting a result tomorrow is basically non existent.

It is far more likely that this will be the hearing to decide when the mention date will occur that decides when the motion date will be. A whole lot of money wasted on this stupid system just to get us nowhere. Oh well I am still excited because it will be the first step in the process over and done with.

I would like to also shout out my lawyer S. P. Hardy if you ever have any sort of traffic offenses in Victoria Australia you should check out his site http://www.trafficlaw.com.au it details everything you should do when handling it.

Thanks

Matt

Long time no Post

2007-07-16T16:45:00.000+10:00

Ok well I need to say sorry. I had all of these good testing blogs planned and then work just ran away and became overly crazy. It has now been almost 2 months since the last blog. It was something that I was really enjoying and I want to keep doing it.

Watch this space there will be some more interesting content in the next few days

Matt

Longhorn server NIS Authentication

2007-05-13T12:16:00.000+10:00

Longhorn server NIS Authentication

Well as a follow up to my last piece, which got linked to by iqubed, I wanted to show that Microsoft had done some good work with their interoperability since previous versions of Windows Server. I had a good look at the NFS and NIS services which I believed would provide me with the features that I used in the past through the Active Directory Authentication and hopefully with out the hassle involved with them.

However just installing the NIS services was a pain and after a total of 6 reboots Longhorn informed me that there was something stoping the installation; however I did not let me know how I could fix this at all.

root@odin749:~# ypcat passwd

Administrator:ABCD!efgh12345$67890:10000:10000::/home/Administrator:/bin/sh

odin749:ABCD!efgh12345$67890:10001:10000::/home/odin749:/bin/sh

root@odin749:~#

After beating my head against a wall for quite a while I was able to work everything out. NIS wasn’t installing because I didn’t have enough hard drive space left on the box and that was stopping everything from proceeding.

The biggest problem I found with the installation was that all users will need to change their passwords before they will work through NIS, since the first time it maps it only sends random values for the passwords.

With NIS I am able to solve the problems that No active directory gives me and use my Windows Passwords for various unix applications such as Apache, Squid and Dovecot.

Longhorn server and Ubuntu Active Directory Authentication

2007-05-10T22:49:00.000+10:00

Longhorn server and Ubuntu do they still play together?

The best feature of Samba is being able to join an Active Directory domain and authenticate against for desktop logins, web applications and almost anything else you can think of that requires a user name and password. In the past I have used the Winbind authentication for email over POPS and IMAPS and found the features to be fantastic for any business that operates in a heterogeneous environment.

Microsoft have just released Longhorn Server Beta 3 which offers a fairly big change from previous windows server versions in the way it approaches network management with a large focus on role based servers. There real question however is can linux boxes still join and authenticate against Active Directory domains running at Native Longhorn Server levels. Well the answer a non surprising NO!

I spent around 8 hours trying to get this to work based on previous working configurations that I had for windows 2003 nothing worked at all

Below is a quick look at the configuration that I had which failed to work

I started with a stock standard Ubuntu 7.04 install and a base install of Longhorn Server beta 3 you can review my configurations below. Based on what I have found I believe that Microsoft have changed some major parts of Kerberos since the standard encryption for windows didn’t work. When I changed this to Auto negioation I was able to get a ticket however when I attempted to add the computer to the domain I continued to get different Kerberos errors.

#first step

odin749@odin749:~$ sudo su -

Password:

root@odin749:~# apt-get update

root@odin749:~# apt-get dist-upgrade

#enable remote login

root@odin749:~# apt-get install ssh

#Install Samba

root@odin749:~# apt-get install samba

#Install Winbind

root@odin749:~# apt-get install winbind

#Install Kerboras

root@odin749:~# apt-get install krb5-clients krb5-user

#CONFIGURE KRB5

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/krb5.conf

[logging]

default = FILE10000:/var/log/krb5lib.log

[libdefaults]

ticket_lifetime = 24000

default_realm = ASTECH.COM

default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc

default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc

[realms]

ASTECH.COM = {

kdc = thor.astech.com

admin_server = thor.astech.com

default_domain = ASTECH.COM

}

[domain_realm]

.astech.com = ASTECH.COM

astech.com = ASTECH.COM

#CONFIGURE SAMBA

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]

workgroup = ASGUARD

realm = ASGUARD.COM

security = ADS

password server = thor.asguard.com

domain master = No

idmap uid = 500-1000

idmap gid = 500-1000

template shell = /bin/bash

winbind separator = +

winbind use default domain = Yes

root@odin749:~# testparm

Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf

Loaded services file OK.

'winbind separator = +' might cause problems with group membership.

Server role: ROLE_DOMAIN_MEMBER

Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions

#CONFIGURE NSSWITCH

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: compat winbind

group: compat winbind

shadow: compat

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4 wins

networks: files

protocols: db files

services: db files

ethers: db files

rpc: db files

netgroup: nis

#CONFIGURE PAM

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/pam.d/common-account

account sufficient pam_winbind.so

account required pam_unix.so

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/pam.d/common-auth

auth sufficient pam_winbind.so

auth required pam_unix.so nullok_secure use_first_pass

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/pam.d/common-password

password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=50 md5

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/pam.d/common-session

session required pam_makehomedir.so umask=0022 skel=/ect/skel

session required pam_unix.so

session optional pam_foreground.so

#MAKE HOME DIR

root@odin749:~# mkdir /home/ASTECH

#ADD KERBROS REALM

root@odin749:~# kinit administrator@ASTECH.COM

kinit(v5): Cannot resolve network address for KDC in requested realm while getting initial credentials

#DNS WRONG

#ENCRIPTION TYPE WONG

root@odin749:~# kinit administrator@ASTECH.COM

kinit(v5): KDC has no support for encryption type while getting initial credentials

root@odin749:~# vi /etc/krb5.conf

[logging]

default = FILE10000:/var/log/krb5lib.log

[libdefaults]

default_realm = ASTECH.COM

dns_lookup_realm = false

dns_lookup_kdc = false

ticket_lifetime = 24h

forwardable = yes

[realms]

ASTECH.COM = {

kdc = thor.astech.com

admin_server = thor.astech.com

default_domain = ASTECH.COM

}

[domain_realm]

.astech.com = ASTECH.COM

astech.com = ASTECH.COM

[appdefaults]

pam = {

debug = false

ticket_lifetime = 36000

renew_lifetime = 36000

forwardable = true

krb4_convert = false

}

root@odin749:/var/log# kinit administrator@ASTECH.COM

Password for administrator@ASTECH.COM:

kinit(v5): Clock skew too great while getting initial credentials

root@odin749:/var/log# kinit administrator@ASTECH.COM

Password for administrator@ASTECH.COM:

root@odin749:/var/log#

root@odin749:/var/log# klist

Ticket cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_0

Default principal: administrator@ASTECH.COM

Valid starting Expires Service principal

05/04/07 23:59:09 05/05/07 09:59:02 krbtgt/ASTECH.COM@ASTECH.COM

renew until 05/05/07 23:59:09

Kerberos 4 ticket cache: /tmp/tkt0

klist: You have no tickets cached

root@odin749:/var/log# net ads join -U administrator@astech.com

administrator@astech.com's password:

[2007/05/05 00:01:22, 0] utils/net_ads.c:ads_startup(289)

ads_connect: No such file or directory

I know I am late but - 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C009-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

2007-05-02T21:52:00.000+10:00

I know I am late but - 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

Well I just got home from work and it appears the whole internet has gone CRAZY. Crazy in a frenzy of unison against DRM and the MPAA, Digg users today showed the power of the internet and how censorship in the internet age just doesn’t work.

I must say I first heard this news in the most unlikely of places http://www.mikeportnoy.com/ on the forums there users were busily talking about how the power of the internet has prevailed. I have spent the next three hours reading through posts on digg, Slashdot and many other various blogs. I must say that this reaction from the community has been very encouraging and something like this has been brewing for a very long time. The legal beaucracies just cannot silence the collective mass of geeks everywhere who have created the technology for people to get their ideas expressed and heard by millions of people in a matter of seconds.

For those who don’t know the key above is the main AACS(the content scrambling system) used for the DRM of both Bluray and HD-DVD. In mid February the http://Doom9.org forum users managed to crack a software player for HD-DVD which after some very careful disassembly led them to the main code allowing users to build tools similar to the famed DeCSS this will allow users to make backups of their purchased content and play both HD-DVDs and Blurays on Linux.

The articles on Digg have been voted for by users over 55000 times making this the most popular topic ever on that site. Google for me turns up 21000 links which must not include all the sites that have been put up over the day. This information must now count as public knowledge which would nullify any legal action over the people posting it.

Please if you read this share this as much as possible.

Labor Leader Kevin Rudd Responds to my Email

2007-05-01T21:27:00.001+10:00

Labor Leader Kevin Rudd Responds to my Email

On the 22^nd of March after the announcement of the Australian broadband plan by the Australian Labor part I sent Kevin Rudd an email stating that this is the one policy that could get me to convert from a liberal voter to a labour one.

From: Matthew Burrows [mailto:burrows749@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2007 8:07 PM
To: Rudd, Kevin (MP)
Subject: Broadband deal

Kevin

I am a long time liberal voter who has never in the past considered voting Labor, however I am very close to reconsidering this because of the promise to run fibre through the last mile. As a IT worker who often works from home the major lack of infrastructure and current farcical pricing structure has been a huge hindrance. I daily work with people from other parts of the world who have 100mb connections into the house which offers up a large amount of new possibilities for how to use the internet that are not possible with the current 1.5mb connections that for many Australians is the max that they can get. Seeing the Liberals object to this plan has cast serious doubt in my mind as to their long term viability, how can they lack the foresight that this is the only way forward for Australia. I look forward to reading the fine print on this plan as it is the one issue that will change my vote.

Regards

Matthew Burrows

Since over 1 month had passed since I sent the email I assumed that it didn’t go through however I just received this response.

From: Wilkins, Patti (K. Rudd, MP) [mailto:Patti.Wilkins@aph.gov.au] On Behalf Of Rudd, Kevin (MP)
Sent: Tuesday, 1 May 2007 3:46 PM
To: Matthew Burrows
Subject: RE: Broadband deal

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your letter regarding your inability to access reasonable broadband services.

Labor is very concerned about the poor access to broadband faced by many Australians in suburban and regional Australia.

In the 21^st century, Australia needs universal, equitable and affordable broadband access.

That's why Australia needs Labor's National Broadband Network.

Labor will invest up to $4.7 billion to establish the National Broadband Network in partnership with the private sector. The National Broadband Network will connect 98 per cent of Australians to high speed broadband internet services – at a speed more than 40 times faster than most current speeds. The remaining two per cent of Australians in regional and remote areas not covered by this network will have improved broadband services.

New services and benefits of the National Broadband Network – particularly in rural and regional areas – include:

· Slashed telephone bills for small business;

· Enhanced business services such as teleconferencing, video conferencing and virtual private networks;

· Enhanced capacity for services like e-education and e-health; and

· High definition, multi-channel and inter-active TV services.

Labor's Plan for a National Broadband Network shows the Labor Party's vision for Australia. It delivers the future to all Australians – today.

Thank you for you correspondence and please contact me with any queries you may have. You can find out further information on Labor’s plan for a National Broadband Network online at:

http://eherald.alp.org.au/download/labors_broadband_future_for_australia.pdf

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Rudd

Federal Labor Leader

Member for Griffith

Kevin I would like to thank you for your response I will carefully review it and post my comments of it on my blog.

Windows Vista – A positive review?

2007-04-30T21:44:00.000+10:00

Windows Vista – A positive review?

There have been many negative reviews floating around the internet for Vista. I think that it must be an unwritten law that if you are posting anything you need to be an avid Microsoft hater and an Open source fanatic. This mentality on the internet has meant that most people are unwilling to give Vista a proper try and immediately write it off as just more Microsoft crap.

I have been using Vista since the Public Beta process and have grown quite fond of it in that time. I installed RTM in December and am currently using the Ultimate version. My initial impressions of the operating system were to be honest not much. It looked pretty and most things functioned that way that I thought they should however I just did not feel that it made a difference in the way I did anything.

2 weeks ago my work laptop’s hard disk died and the IT department rebuilt it with Windows XP. This was the first time I had used XP since December, I couldn’t believe how much I had come to relay on the new Vista features. How could I have put up with this operating system for so long? How could I have not instantly liked Vista? Well it is the little things that I miss most about Vista.

The Start Menu

The best feature of Windows Vista is the Start Menu. The integration of search as the primary method of launching programs remain one of the best innovations I have seen for a long time (Note I have never used a Mac and therefore haven’t been exposed to spotlight) while it was hard to retrain myself to use the searching rather than navigating through all the menus, it has been next to impossible breaking the habit of search and I am now often having trouble locating the exact program I wish to use.

Aero Glass

Well this topic has been covered to death; the new default theme is sleek and efficient. It is not too much needless eye candy but good functional use of composite windows. However flip 3D is complete overkill and not all that useful, it is still far more efficient to use Alt-Tab. I like the new theme and have found it hard to go back to the bright teletubby view of Windows XP.

Internet Explorer 7

The complete rewrite of IE has produced a vastly superior product to IE6. The addition of tabbed browsing, which is the finest new feature, along with the added security stoping the browser from executing code at higher privileges has made the browser worth using. I stop using IE when Firefox 1 came out however with IE7 I was using it more and more. Given that I am now back on XP with only IE6 I immediately installed Firefox again just to keep me sane.

Features I don’t like

1. Network and Sharing centre. I have found this to be really annoying; it takes 3 extra steps to do simple things like find the IP address.

2. UAC. This has been the subject of excessive hyperbole on the internet. It really isn’t as bad as many think, however it is still irritating when you are trying to install a few programs at once or when you need a program to permanently launch with elevated permissions.

Overall all the little things in Vista have made it a great product to use that is superior to XP in many ways. The real question is doesn’t it adequately represent 5 years of development at Microsoft, definitely not. It is more of a minor evolutionary upgrade than the major computing revolution that Microsoft’s marketing team would have us believe. I personally will be installing Vista again because I have found it to be better however I know many could not justify the price and to all of them I recommend that you stay using XP.

Odin’s view on File sharing

2007-04-29T22:03:00.000+10:00

Odin’s view on File sharing

The argument about file sharing has been raised since napster was first on the scene in 1999 and really hasn’t changed much since. I think that file sharing has benefited the music industry more than any other invention ever yet the short-sightedness of groups like the RIAA and MPAA have failed to noticed the real benefit a medium for people to test there product instantly at no cost to the creators of the content.

I will be the first to admit that I have a large collection of music and videos downloaded from the internet almost 2.5k Mp3s and about 100GB of movies and television shows. The money hungry RIAA and MPAA can also rest assured that even with all that content available at my disposable I still purchase large amounts of DVDs and Audio CDs. Generally when I hear about something new that might be interesting I get straight onto emule to download the content. If I like it enough to purchase it I will, however if it really isn’t that good it will just go straight into the archive with the rest of my mp3s never to be listened to again.

I know I am not alone with this mentality, many of my friends operate the same way. The example that always give is that in 1999 when I was a very young 15 I heard on the grape vine about a band called Metallica and the fact that they had some good music. Well I fired up napster and downloaded 4 or 5 of Metallica’s songs and instantly fell in love. Well since that time I have acquired all the Metallica albums, all the live DVDs 5 of the tab booklets and been to 2 of there live shows. The large investment I made in there music just never would have happened if I wasn’t presented with their music on napster and given the choice to like it.

About half way through writing this article I noticed on the www.dreamtheater.net that they had released their new single Constant Motion for free download. Now here is a band that gets exactly what I was talking about you can let people make the choice about your music the ones who would have bought the album most likely still will.

NOTE: I know this is quite poorly written, I am tired and hung over but still felt the need to convey my thoughts on this matter. I will do some more research

100 page impressions

2007-04-29T16:15:00.000+10:00

100 page impressions

Wow I didn’t think this would come after only 3 blogs but somehow enough people have already found me that I have 100 page impressions. All I can say is wow. I know for many people on the internet that really isn’t much at all. However I have never done anything like this before and I am really enjoying the experience of making the blogs. It was a lot of hard work last night doing the review of Longhorn it took me almost 6 hours but that article along has drawn almost 70 of the 100 views so it was definitely worth it. I will continue writing up good blogs as I think of them. I think next on the cards I will write about my experience getting Samba to Query Active Directory for usernames and passwords on Linux machines, but it might take me a couple of days to put that together so I think I might right about my opinions on the whole Music and Movie download scene on the internet.

Windows Longhorn Beta 3 Review

2007-04-29T01:09:00.000+10:00

Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3 Review

Introduction

Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3 is currently feature complete however there are still many bugs limiting its overall performance and even in some cases as with Active Directory Right Management Service the bugs were bad enough to stop the application from installing. Overall Longhorn will be an evolutionary release containing many new features however many businesses will have trouble justifying the expense of the upgrades.

For a large gallery of pictures please click here

Installation Configuration

The installation of Longhorn server is almost exactly the same as the process for Vista http://techitz.blogspot.com/ has a good amount of screen shots from the installation.

I ran the installation through a VMWare server that was running a P4 2.8G with 1.2 GB of RAM running Windows Vista. I allocated 10GB of hard disk space and 512MB of RAM to the virtual machine. This configuration was not adequate performance wise and I would not recommend running Longhorn server with less than 2GB of RAM.

Common Server tasks

Longhorn has been made completely role based meaning that the base install contains very few setup services and comes with a firewall so it looks like it has a very secure default install.

Microsoft has made a MMC plug-in called Server Manager that is basically a central area to manage both the installation and ongoing server management. I have found this to be a great addition to the system as it was very easy for me someone completely unfamiliar with all the changes in Longhorn to get everything done that I was able to previously do in Windows 2003.

The server is installed without setting an administrator password which seems rather unsecured to me. The first item that everybody should do straight after installation is set the password.

Terminal Server

The first thing that I did was set up Terminal Server so that I could connect remotely to the server from my laptop. Anyone who has had any experience with setting this up in past versions will have no problem as it is exactly the same.

Terminal Server has some great new features which look like that have been ripped directly out of Citrix products. The ability to just push one app to certain clients sound perfect but it doesn’t seam anywhere near as powerful as Citrix.

File Server

The basic file server setup is exactly that same as in the past with the dual NTFS and sharing permissions to be set on the folder that you want shared. This part has basically remained unchanged since the very early days of Windows NT. What is a new and exciting feature for companies with a mixed (UNIX,Linux) environments is the ability to directly set up NFS shares directly through the same dialogs as the standard SMB shares.

Active Directory and Management

The active directory installation and setup was very similar to Windows 2003. It actively setup the DNS at the same time making the process very easy. I had no problem adding both Windows XP and Vista computers to the domain and authenticating of it. Active Directory also has some extra features designed for integration with Unix such as NIS, which I have been unable to test but I am fairly excited about.

I was unable to get any group policy working to test any of that due to some bugs preventing its installation.

Conclusions

I have not yet spent enough time with Longhorn to make any solid conclusions, however I think this release will make quite a few very good feature improvements. There are still many very obvious bugs in the code however as a Microsoft product still in beta I expected nothing less.

Microsoft have also still not gotten out of the habit of requiring users make a ridiculous amount of reboots while setting up there system. I had to reboot the system 7 times in the first 2 hours while I was doing all my configurations. This is just stupid in this day in age where I can do almost everything on a operating system like Linux without ever needing to do a system reboot.

The State of Public Transport in Melbourne Australia

2007-04-25T23:04:00.001+10:00

Well if you have read my first blog you will know that I just recently lost my drivers license. This situation has led to many problems the worst of which is catching public transport in Melbourne.

For those who don’t know the structure of Melbourne it has grown mostly by Urban Sprawl primarily designed for car use. There is a limited rail network which was mostly constructed between 1880 and 1930, during the period after the Victorian gold rush but before the on set of the great depression. These early rail links formed all the population growth corridors though the outer suburbs. However with the advent of the car Victorias transport strategy largely shifted solely to moving people around via roads. Throughout the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s Melbourne went on a major freeway building regime constructing large corridors channelling traffic from the outer suburbs straight into the city. Melbourne has one of the largest contiguous freeway networks for a city of its size. Melbourne is a city built for the car, and until I lost my license I liked it that way.

Melbourne public transport system incorporates 3 distinct networks, rail, tram and buses. As said earlier the rail system was built very early on in the cities history and is completely inadequate to server today’s population which has tripled since the 1930’s when they stopped building new lines. The tram network as a whole functions fairly well except it only serves the inner suburbs and completely chokes the traffic on the roads they run along. My real problem lies with the bus network.

If you can use one word to describe the state of the bus network in Melbourne it would be “CRAP”. I live in what would be classified as the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. An area that was largely just cow paddock 30 years ago and thus it completely missed out on any rail or tram services so all we have to move us around is the buses. I also have the misfortune needing to catch 2 buses to get to my final destination which often means large waiting times at either end when I have to transfer.

Driving to work in a car takes me 26 minutes non peak or 40 minutes in peak time. It is a north-south journey so it doesn’t get too much traffic. This same journey daily on a bus takes me 1:30 non peak or up too 2 hours during peak. The worst thing is that the bus routes I take are some of the best in Melbourne. They are these new so called smart buses and unlike most bus routes they run in what is pretty close to a direct route.

The buses are everyday no matter what time I am on completely full of people often requiring me to stand up for the entire journey. The main users of public transport are recently immigrated people from either Asia or India who are unable to speak English and delay the buses further taking a large amount of time communicating which ticket they need.

I think public transport will always be much less comfortable than personal transport and once I have my licence back I will go straight to the Car Lot and purchase a new car so that I will never have to get on a bus again. However there are things this government can do that will help alleviate the major problems on the network today.

Improve all major roads and include dedicated bus lines. This does not mean closing down existing public lanes but adding new lanes specifically for high volume transport. On roads where traffic is being pushed onto newly built freeways such as Springvale and Stud rds close down 1 lane for buses.
Straighten up bus routes. Most of the buses in Melbourne run on zig-zag lines through back streets and take the most indirect route to the final destination. Buses should travel the same path that people would drive.
Increase frequency. A “good” bus in Melbourne will run every 15-20min all day with very few running more than that and the vast majority running far less. There are many buses that only run once an hour out of peak. This is just an unacceptable situation making people wait for extremely long times to get connecting routes in the daily commutes just to get to work. Buses should run every 5 – 10 minutes this will reduce the over crowding and minimize waiting times.

Implementing these 3 action items will greatly increase the patronage on public transport in Melbourne however even with these benefits I for one will still be an avid user of private transport and will take my car to work regardless of the price of petrol.

A breif history of the last few months

2007-04-25T20:28:00.000+10:00

Well since this is my first blog(How exciting) I thought I would give who ever is reading this a background story about my life leading up to this point. This will outline my work history and what was a pretty disastrous time for me over the last few months.

I am a 22 year old IT Project Manager working for a top fortune 50 company in Melbourne, Australia. It has been a long road to get to that point at such a young age but all I can say is my hard work has prevailed.

I have just been through what I would consider some of the toughest months of my life from Dec 06 - Mar 07. One act of stupidity cost me the majority of what I valued in my life. I drunk drove, blew 0.15 after crashing heavily into the concrete barrier on the Monash Freeway. I had my license immediately suspended and still six months later I am waiting to hear back from the court to find out how long I have lost it for. This also wrote my car off putting me $7000 out of pocket. 5 days later I got fired from my job because they wrongly believed that to be effective in my job I needed a license. 1 stupid decision that I can not remember making turned my life upside down.

From that moment on I spent the next 3 months desperately looking for work dealing with pretentious recruiters who had no idea how to look for IT staff yet thought they knew everything. Somehow I managed to get passed this people on many occasions to the clients interviewer where 9/10 the problem was either that I was too young or too inexperienced to do the jobs even though they involved half the amount of work that I was doing in my previous job, or they had issue with the fact that I got fired from my last job because I lost my license.

Finally I found interviewer that looked past the fact that I was young and did not have a license. They gave me the chance to perform which I have. I have already taken on more projects above and beyond what I was hired to do.

That horrible chapter was finally closed.

Prior to all this drama I was an IT manager at Kings Transport where I personally ran the entire IT systems for 300 users. I had 4 staff under me and I ran the majority of the IT projects within the company, doing everything from website designs, software development and building moves. It was the most intense 18 months of my life and even with a sour ending I am very greatful that it happened.

I started at Kings in the June of 2005 as a System Administrator, and through what was a series of good fortune for myself everyone above me kept leaving the company which basically meant that I got promoted very quickly. I was often working 60 hour weeks as IT manager which basically meant that I got burnt out very quickly.

Before I worked at Kings I was a manager at KFC in Rowville. I started there when I was 15 and worked my way up through the ranks until I was a manager. I spent a total of 6 years there from 1999 to 2005. While for the majority of the time I was a manager I really did not enjoy the job, it was a great learning experience that taught me heaps. I continue to draw on my experience from this time and would recommend working at fast food outlets to all teenagers.

My social life at the moment I must admit is pretty boring, I love to go out and drink lots and dance at clubs however many of my friends work right through the weekend so often if I really want to go out I need to go by myself. It makes life hard going by yourself but I do always manage to have a really good time out.