Andrew Ferrier

I no longer use Highrise, but when I did, I used this Python script to back up my contacts. Hope it’s helpful to someone.

Updated 2009-12-14: Added license

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# Copyright (c) 2009, Andrew Ferrier All rights reserved.
#
# Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
# modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
#
# * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
# this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
#
# * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
# this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
# and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
#
# * The name of Andrew Ferrier may not be used to endorse or promote products
# derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
#
# THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
# AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
# IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
# ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
# LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
# CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
# SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
# INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
# CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
# ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
# POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 
import httplib2
import getopt
import sys
 
try:
    opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], "a:d:", ["user-auth-token=", "domain="])
except getopt.GetoptError, err:
    print str(err)
    sys.exit(2)
userauthtoken = None
domain = None
for o, a in opts:
    if o in ("-a", "--user-auth-token"):
        userauthtoken = a
    elif o in ("-d", "--domain"):
        domain = a
    else:
        assert False, "unhandled option"
 
if userauthtoken == None or domain == None:
    print "You must specify both the user-auth-token and the domain"
    sys.exit(2)
 
url = "http://" + domain + ".highrisehq.com/people.xml"
 
http = httplib2.Http()
 
http.add_credentials(userauthtoken, "x")
 
offset = 0
content = ""
 
while True:
    response, newContent = http.request(url + "?n=" + str(offset))
 
    if response.status != 200:
        sys.exit(response.status)
 
    numContacts = newContent.count("<person>")
    offset += numContacts
    content += newContent
 
    if numContacts < 500:
        break
 
print content

Just come back from the new Winchester Waitrose. Upsides are:

• Large; decent selection of food.
• Looks like usual upscale Waitrose food quality.
• Pleasant, well-turned out, professional staff (Sainsbury’s Winchester, I’m looking at you here).
• Clean and well-presented store (once again, a glance in Sainsbury’s direction).

Downsides:

• It’s too far out of town. OK, it probably isn’t if you have a car, I admit. I’m in the minority by avoiding one for cost reasons (which might cause one to question why I choose to shop at Waitrose, so it probably works for most of their customers). But, for me, it is a trek. I’ll probably be trying out Waitrose Deliver to see if that might help.
• Poor range at fresh bread counter.

I recently bought a veryPC AT20 as a more powerful replacement for an aging Debian-hacked NSLU2 that I had serving up files, doing backups, and other such tasks. I thought I’d do a quick review in case it’s of value to anyone considering a machine from veryPC (at the time of writing, it seems to be no longer for sale, although the veryPC AT10 looks similar).

I particularly wanted something more meaty than my NSLU2 so I could do full-disk encryption, fully-encrypted offsite backups, so it seemed ideal. The variation I ordered has:

• Dual-Core Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 330 (1.6GHz)
• 1GB RAM
• 1TB Western Digital “GreenPower” Hard Drive
• Intel 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics
• Onboard audio, 6 USB 2.0 ports, a serial port, a parallel port
• Integrated 100MB Ethernet
• RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI Wireless Card
• DVD-RW drive

(total approximately £370)

Very PC seem fairly reputable, and their customer service was adequate, if not outstanding (they didn’t keep me up-to-date on my order until I emailed them, at which point they interrupted me by calling, they didn’t always respond to sales enquiry emails, and were coy about their returns policy). Nevertheless, they do offer a 3-year warranty as standard, which shows confidence in their products.

Nevertheless, the PC arrived fairly promptly (~5 days), and appears to be robustly built: whilst compact, the case is very solid and feels strong. The whole machine exudes a feeling of high build quality, and is mostly constructed from metal rather than cheap plastic. Here’s what it looks like from the outside:

The machine came shipped with Ubuntu (Desktop) pre-installed, although I rapidly reinstalled it with the Ubuntu Server (a wise decision anyway, since VeryPC forgot to include information on the default username and password!). As such, every piece of hardware works well with the exception of the wi-fi card, which, using the default driver, suffered from frequent drop-outs (a problem I’ve had before with the RaLink cards under Linux). Replacing the standard driver with a ndiswrapper verison (more information here and here) resolved this. Channels 12 and 13 also don’t seem to work correctly with this driver, so the wi-fi network has to run on another channel.

The main disappointment was the noise generated by the machine. To be fair, VeryPC described it as ‘ultra quiet’, and with other noisy items on (e.g. a modern laptop with the fan spinning), you won’t hear it. However, in an otherwise silent room, you definitely will – and you don’t have to get close to it either. I haven’t done any formal tests, but if you want a completely silent machine, this is not the one for you. If you can tolerate a small amount of fan noise in very quiet environments, it should be OK.

Another minor point: the machine has an external power supply brick (like a laptop). VeryPC didn’t make this clear, but you should factor it in if you’re considering buying one.

Otherwise, though, I’m fairly satisfied. It does what it says on the tin, I’ve had no reliability problems whatsoever (save for the wi-fi card issues mentioned above), and the machine is running 24h a day and doing a solid job. So kudos to veryPC for putting together a good bit of kit.

As I’ve written about before, I use a combination of Vodafone 3G and the AT&T Network Client on Windows to access my corporate VPN. Recently, I’ve been seeing this error a lot when ‘dialling’ the 3G network (I connect it via the Windows dialler, rather than the Vodafone client):

This morning, I figured out what it was that was causing the problem. AT&T was open when I was dialling, and had the modem selected in the ‘Cellular’ tab (which I don’t normally use):

I hypothesise that it’s got a lock on the modem when this is selected (even if the ‘Cellular’ tab is not selected). Quitting the AT&T client appears to allow the connection to be created. You can then restart it and connect to the VPN in the normal way (using ‘existing internet connection’).

Hope this helps someone.

I’ve written before about how poor the Vodafone 3G Mobile Connect client is, and the alternative in Windows. However, it’s also worth mentioning that the card itself is far from perfect. It is very sensitive to the position of the SIM Card – having it off by even a few millimetres can mean it doesn’t connect, and it’s not always obvious what is wrong. The crucial thing is to have it poking out of the top, but only by half a millimetre or so. Don’t push it in all the way! This photo shows what it should look like:

It’s a shame Vodafone themselves don’t bother making this clear. This wasted about an hour of my time when  I first got the card.

Been to see two films in almost as few days recently. Slumdog Millionaire was entertaining; perhaps not the classic it could have been – I think it lacked a little clarity in storytelling – but still great. Frost/Nixon was more compelling, certainly for me: I was not expecting Frank Langella’s performance as Nixon to be as good as it was – in the end, it perhaps beat Anthony Hopkins’s classic performance from Nixon. Watch out for Oliver Platt’s wonderful performance-within-a-performance imitation of Nixon.

If you’re anything like me, you hate the Vodafone Mobile Connect client - it’s buggy, unstable, and requires frequent reboots/restarts/taking-the-card-out-and-putting-it-back-in-again to make it work. What I only discovered today – although I should have known from ancient dial-up modem connections years ago – was that you can just use the regular ‘Network Connections’ facility of Windows. Just locate the ‘Vodafone Mobile Connect’ entry, right-click and select ‘Connect’ (I think this will only appear once you’ve installed the Vodafone software):

Easy-peasy connectivity. You can still track how many bytes have been uploaded/downloaded in the current session by turning on ‘Show icon in notification area when connected’ from the Connection’s Properties dialog. You’ll then see an icon in the system tray with a pop-up showing usage. Sadly, this is only for the current session, not the month as a whole – haven’t yet found a decent bit of software to do that (surprisingly).

(This post is probably of most interest to my IBM colleagues – however, since the AT&T Network Client is also available for other organisations, I’ve posted this here in case it’s of use to other folks.)

I recently installed Ubuntu 64bit (amd64) on my Lenovo Thinkpad T61. Unfortunately, the Network Client is not available in a 32bit edition. So I had to perform a few tweaks to get it to work. Here’s the steps I took:

• Install the ia32-libs package and all it’s dependencies:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

• Install the AT&T client itself (IBM colleagues can obtain this from the OCDC website):

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture agnclient_1.0~2.0.1.3000-3_i386.deb

• Add some symlinks:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libssl.so.0.9.8 /usr/lib32/libssl.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 /usr/lib32/libcrypto.so.4

• You should now be able to start the Network Client from the Internet section of the Gnome menu, or from /opt/agns/bin/agnclient. Click Connect and enter your details as normal.

After yet another grumble at jt, I’ve finally broken and will give Twitter a try (my ID is andrewferrier). I’m still struggling to see where the benefit will come from, but he made the valid point that I can’t say for sure ’til I try it – so I’ve given in and will give it a go. To be fair, I’ve come across two bits of useful info. already, so early signs are promising.

My concerns are:

• It’ll suck time. I don’t think that can be avoided – it’s just a question of whether there’s enough benefit there to make it worthwhile.
• I haven’t yet found an interface that works for me. twitter.com is too much of a stream-of-consciousness, and not rich enough to show clear threads of discussion or filter stuff out. I’m avoiding desktop clients as a matter of habit these days. Integrating the RSS feed into my Google Reader stream will just overwhelm me. This could be a deal-breaker; I’m already wondering whether Twitter actually lends itself to a inbox, read-everything model or if I should chill and let stuff slip past unread (something that sends prickles down my spine).
• Twitter’s help pages suck. Still haven’t found the number to SMS updates to in the UK (OK, I haven’t tried that hard).

Early this year I wrote about how the French were standing up to anti-smoking legislation. The Dutch are now doing the same. I wish the British didn’t roll over so easily.

Forcing pub owners (or anyone else) to enforce your preferences is wrong and a thoroughly illiberal idea. It makes the world more homogenous and less interesting. Don’t stand for it.