The I.T. Boy's Blog

Well what can we say about that? I honestly don’t know!

Although I would like to sit here and write about how the ref was by far THE WORST ref I have seen in my life and that the referees association should take action, the truth is forest weren’t clinically enough. We had 3 clear cut chances in the first 15 minutes, which if we had finished 1 or 2 would have turned the game around, but it was PNE that struck first. Lee Camp looked static as the ball trickled past him into the bottom left corner. After that PNE worked really but finally the reds broke the deadlock with not one but two goals. In the dire moments of the game when you think you’ve got all 3 points (and a minute and a half over the allotted stoppages) PNE do the unthinkable and get an equalizer.

GUTTED!

No other way to describe it. Forest unfortunately to blame for the poor performance in a game that we should have cleaned up. It’s as simple as that. However, as I said following the Scunny game, pick your heads up lads, re-group and let’s focus on the next game. It’s a marathon not a sprint and we’ve 14 games still to play (over a 1/4 of the season).

Will be anxiously looking at the news over the next few days for info on Koncheski’s injury in addition to whether Robbie Earnshaw (who is a red and hates Derby would you believe) will be fit for the trip to London on Saturday against Milwall. The way things look at the moment we need to get some Loan signings in. With only fielding 6 subs today & potentially picking up another injury, we need something to help our push back to the prem. But on the positive, Raddy is back on sat, in addition to potentially Earnie.

On a final note (before I get a little shut eye on the way home) a moan and groan to all tonights PTS’s (part time supporters) who come on the cheap and sit and criticize:

1) Forest play the passing game a lot and this has helped us to get an impressive 36 game unbeaten home run. This is normal so please don’t moan!
2) If you’re going to come to the game please feel free to join in with songs and chants to create a good atmosphere. Seems like most don’t realize they can join in!
3) Please don’t boo the players at half time. We were only 1 nil down. Not the end of the world. If you boo them it will only de-motivate them and make things worse!

RANT OVER

YOU REDS!

What’s the best way to shut the critics up following a midweek defeat against one of the clubs at the bottom of the league? Go out 3 days later and smash one of the top 6 sides!

That’s exactly what the reds went out and did today. What another amazing performance, which extends our unbeaten home run to 35 games and moves us back into the automatic promotion places, still with a game in hand and only 5 point behind leaders QPR. Seems almost like Déjà-vu following last season. But what if anything has changed since then and do we stand a better chance at promotion this time around?

Although I’ve sat listening to Billy week in week out laughing when he makes the comment about “inexperienced, young players” I think the lads have really come on leaps and bounds since last season, especially Luke Chambers, who along side Big Wes have been solid at the back. The addition of Paul Koncheski (apologies if incorrect spelling) has been solid at left back which is the position which has been Thorne in our side for quite some time now. The reason I never wanted to agree with Billy about our “inexperience” is because the team we have now is the same team we had last season that got us into the playoffs. How can a team that achieves that, without any expectation be inexperienced?

Anyway, last season is old news. Do we stand a better chance this time around. I am confident that we can achieve something this time around. I don’t want to get too excited, and I never like singing the promotion song in the stands, but there is something about this special bunch of players that’s quite exciting. If we can strengthen a little bit more, as we are getting into that time of the season where injuries and tiredness creeps in, then whats to stop us?

YOU REDS!

So after yet another home win the mighty Forest are now 33 unbeaten at home and counting, 5th in the league and all this still with games in hand.

You have to wonder to yourself what it will feel like when this amazing run comes to an end. I know we have lost many games away from home since the start of this amazing run, but I seem to have forgotten what defeat feels like. I personally think that when that day comes and our home run comes to an end it will feel like losing a cup final, but that’s what I think.

No need to worry about that yet anyway. We are looking in good form, and hopefully we will strengthen up with a couple of signings before the end of the window. Billy made an interesting comment on radio Nottingham after the game saying “we’ll see what happens over the next couple of days”. Hoping that this is positive news and a signing (or 2) is imminent. Mr chipperfield has also reported today that Robbie Findlay should be back for the latter part of the week. Maybe ready for a run out on Sunday against the hammers. We will have to wait and see.

YOU REDS!

Just thought I would put a quick blog post together for any Season Ticket Holders going to West Ham away on Sunday (30th) and got thier tickets via the online booking system.

Check how much you paid for your ticket.  When I got confirmation of the booking it turns out that I was charged £17 per ticket rather than the advertised £15 for season ticket holders. I rang the Ticket office yesterday and they gave me a full refund of £2 per ticket.

Ok, so it’s only £2, but if like me you got multiple tickets, it adds up to the value of a travel card and pint in London.

Just thought i would share with everyone.

YOU REDS!

So I’m currently working on an automation script which reads a number from a file, and based on that number it will perform a booking on a website without any interaction from the user.  One problem that I was trying to overcome was how to make the password for the website decrypt-able, as I normally use 1 way encryption on projects, so if the user forget their password, they need to reset it. 

The tool that i am using for the automation is able to utilise VBScript, and the main website (where the file with number in it will be generated from) is C# .net, so i have decided to use (along with other methods to beef up the secutiry) Base64 strings.  It’s pretty straight forward to do in c#. Use the following function:

public static string EncodePassword(string toEncode)
{
ASCIIEncoding encoding = new ASCIIEncoding();
return Convert.ToBase64String(encoding.GetBytes(toEncode));
}


For example, if you pass in the string “Hello World“, it will return “SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ=”

It was the VBScirpt that i didn’t know how to convert it back, but after a bit of google’ing i found this thread which provided me with the solution:

Function fDecode(sStringToDecode)
 'This function will decode a Base64 encoded string and returns the decoded string.
 'This becomes usefull when attempting to hide passwords from prying eyes.
  Const CharList = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/"
  Dim iDataLength, sOutputString, iGroupInitialCharacter
  sStringToDecode = Replace(Replace(Replace(sStringToDecode, vbCrLf, ""), vbTab, ""), " ", "")
  iDataLength = Len(sStringToDecode)
   If iDataLength Mod 4 <> 0 Then
    fDecode = "Bad string passed to fDecode() function."
    Exit Function
   End If
   For iGroupInitialCharacter = 1 To iDataLength Step 4
    Dim iDataByteCount, iCharacterCounter, sCharacter, iData, iGroup, sPreliminaryOutString
    iDataByteCount = 3
    iGroup = 0
     For iCharacterCounter = 0 To 3
      sCharacter = Mid(sStringToDecode, iGroupInitialCharacter + iCharacterCounter, 1)
       If sCharacter = "=" Then
        iDataByteCount = iDataByteCount - 1
        iData = 0
       Else
        iData = InStr(1, CharList, sCharacter, 0) - 1
         If iData = -1 Then
          fDecode = "Bad string passed to fDecode() function."
          Exit Function
         End If
       End If
      iGroup = 64 * iGroup + iData
     Next
    iGroup = Hex(iGroup)
    iGroup = String(6 - Len(iGroup), "0") & iGroup
    sPreliminaryOutString = Chr(CByte("&H" & Mid(iGroup, 1, 2))) & Chr(CByte("&H" & Mid(iGroup, 3, 2))) & Chr(CByte("&H" & Mid(iGroup, 5, 2)))
    sOutputString = sOutputString & Left(sPreliminaryOutString, iDataByteCount)
   Next
  fDecode = sOutputString
 End Function


The original article can be found here Decode Base64 Strings

Oh, and in case you were wondering how to convert back using c#, simply use the following function:

public static string DecodePassword(string toDecode)
{
ASCIIEncoding encoding = new ASCIIEncoding();
return encoding.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(toDecode));
}

Happy Coding!

So we are now 2 games into the new footballing year and so far the mighty Nottingham Forest are (somehow) unbeaten (reference to the god awful performance they put on against Bars-a-ley on New Year’s Day).  So now it’s time to look forward, with 4 and a bit months left until the end of the season, what will the outcome be for Forest?

It looks like the travesty of last seasons/year’s lack of transfer signings will be averted, given that we have already signed Robert Findlay from the states, as well as Marcus Tudgay and Aaron Ramsey on Loan.  It was unfortunate that we couldn’t have extended the loan of Ramsey as I felt that due to weather conditions, he didn’t really settle.  I know everybody has their own opinions, but he didn’t do it for me.  Although i couldn’t really understand why he came to the club when he wasn’t going to start.  I know he has been out with a broken leg for quite some time, but if you have a high class player like Ramsey, and you only have him for 5 games, surely you want to maximise him?  Marcus Tudgay on the other hand has been absolute class from day 1.  It seems like him and Earnie have gelled well and with the combination of a few nice passes and fancy flicks, we have had and capitalised on some good opportunities.  I feel sorry for Earnie, as no matter how many chance he has had recently has only scored a couple of goals.  Still, persist and I’m sure he’ll start banging them in again.  I think January will be interesting from a transfers point of view.  With the board “Relaxing” the transfer process at the club, it will be interesting to see whether or not we can Extend existing loans or even make a couple of new signings.

The biggest challenge for the reds this year will be to improve their run of form away from home.  It’s hard to believe that a club who is unbeaten at home in 31, can have such poor form away from it.  If Forest can turn it around and start putting in some good (3 point) results away from Trentside, then I really believe that this could be the year for the Reds.  I don’t know how QPR are where they are.  They have one good player and knob for a manager.  Very falsely placed in my eyes.  Cardiff now seem to have hit a slump as well, and it seems the league 1 clubs are on the way up, with Leeds and Norwich making up the top 4 along with Swansea.  Time for use to capitalise on other clubs hardship and make 10/11 the season to remember!  After 11 seasons of going week in week out, I think I deserve to see some Premiership football . . . Please . . . .

YOU REDS!

So here we are then, 2011. Not the best of starts to the year (weather wise), as when i look out my window its snowing quite heavily. I thought we had left this snow in 2010.

Any hoo, as with each year, the main goal is to shed some of this god awful weight that I have put on. In the pre-diet/fitness weigh in my horrors were realised when the scales settled on the 18 stone mark! 18 Stone! I have never been this big in my life, so really need to do something about it now. So in my quest to become a smaller, healthier me, I went out and got the only thing that a gadget man like myself could get, EA Sports Active 2 on the PS3. Did my first workout on it yesterday and my god, I didn’t think that anything could get much harder than the Roller Skating on the last game, but they seem to have beaten it with Mountain Biking. OK, so it’s not doing it for real, but anything that works me into a sweat is good. Once the weather has decided to sort itself out, I’ll definitely be out running. It was quite pitiful when i went out before Xmas as i really struggled to put a mile and a half together, where as before my massive weight increase, i could easily manage 7-8 miles without feeling like I’m going to collapse and die.

So there we go. That’s the main aim for me in 2011. Have got the support of the wife, who is doing this at the same time as me, so hopefully cutting out the booze, eating less and exercising more will do the trick in my mission to lose about 3 1/2 stone! If anyone has any tips to help me along the way, please feel free to comment.

So after a little playing about and getting back into the swing of the decks I decided that it was time to try and pull together another Mash-Up.

After browsing You Tube for quite some time (I’ve become addicted to listening to music on here since moving into my new office) I discovered the Alive 2007 tour by Daft Punk. I’m a big Daft Punk fan anyway but this inspired me to go and buy 4 of their albums (Alive 2007, Discover, Homework and Human After All). With my new arsenal of Daft Punk music I set about trying to create a Mash-Up of one of their tracks. In the end, I decided to use Human After All.

Around the same time I also discovered a cool website called Acapellas4u Which is a great resource to download Acapella versions of songs. After browsing for a while and trying various different tracks, I made the desicion to use Without Me by Eminem.

So with the songs chosen and now mixed, here is the end product.

Human After All / Without Me – Dj Nj

Always happy to hear peoples comments and thoughts so feel free to comment below. Hopefully more Mash-Ups to come soon

So it’s been a while since I last blogged and a few things have happened in my life since then.

Firstly and most importantly I’m going to be a daddy!  How exciting is that.  Due on the 21st July, the sex of Baby Scotney is still unknown, but i can’t wait!

At work, I now have my own office which is pretty cool.  The view isn’t great and it still smells of paint a bit, but it’s a minor problem, as I can now buckle down and be more productive (Plus i get to play what ever music I want )

Babies and New Office Pics

The third and final thing that has happend recently, was a the decision (after quite some time) to bring back my alter ego, Dj Nj.  After sifting through some junk at home I found my equipment and decided to get back into the grove.  This fitted in nicely, as during my time with a web design company (Kimeera – http://www.kimeera.com), we had become obsessed with the theme tune to the classic 1989 kids TV show Woof!, which led to me saying that I would remix it for them.  So here’s a little taster of that track, mixed today.  It’s still a very rough cut and needs a lot of work, but I’ll continue to work on it until it’s done.  It’s mixed with David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – Love Takes Over which in my opinion, was one of the biggest club tracks of last year.  I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on the track and I hope you enjoy it.

Woof! vs David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – When Woof! Takes Over – Dj Nj

Until next time bloggers . . .

So, when you want to start something that you have never done before, where do you start?  As with most things that I embark on, the answer was that well known search engine, Google.  I was aware that there were several versions of Linux available, but after a few minutes searching I made the choice to use Ubuntu.

For those people that don’t know, Linux is an alternative to Windows.  Now I’m not one of those people that thinks Microsoft is the devil.  In fact, I am very keen on their products and the services that they offer, however I really wanted to try something different.

This post will concentrate on 3 things.  Firstly, ensuring that you get (and know where to get) the correct software to move forward, then we will look at how to create and setup a Virtual Machine that is capable of running the O/S and finally we will run the O/S so we can have a sneaky peak at it.

Step 1: Get the Required Software

So the first problem that is what to install the new O/S on?  As I didn’t have any spare hardware lying around, I decided that I would utilize Virtual PC 2007, a free Microsoft product which allows you to create a machine within a machine, which I already had installed on my computer.  You can get this by going to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/ and downloading either the 32 or 64 bit version (depending on your current O/S version) .

Secondly, we need to get the installation media so that we can install the O/S on the virtual machine.  You can get the latest release of Ubuntu from the official website (http://http://www.ubuntu.com/) and downloaded it to my HDD.  If you want, you could choose to burn the download to a disc, however this isn’t necessary.

Step 2: Create the Virtual Machine

Creating a virtual machine is child’s play really.  Here’s how to do it.

First job is to create the new Virtual Machine & Virtual HDD.  Once you have installed Virtual PC 2007, run it and once in the program click on the “New” button in the top right.  You will be presented with a welcome screen.

Create a New Virtual Machine

Click “Next” on the welcome screen and you will be shown a page with 3 options.  Simply select the first options which is “Create a new Virtual Machine” and press “Next”.  The following screen will then ask you where you wish to save your Virtual Machine.

Setting File Location

By default, Virtual PC creates a folder in your Documents folder (My Documents for XP users) called My Virtual Machines.  For this example I am simply going to save my machine there and give it the name Ubuntu (after the O/S we are installing).  Click on the “Next” button when done.

The next screen gives you options for the O/S that you are setting up.  As it is a product of Microsoft, it offers all of the major Windows Operation Systems and not a lot else.  So for this example we will be using the “Other” type.

Setting the OS Type

By default, this allocates 128MB of RAM and 16GB of space for the HDD.  However this can be changed in the steps that follow.  Click “Next” to continue creating your Virtual Machine.  The next step allows you to specify the amount of RAM you want to allocate to the machine.

Allocating the RAM to the virtual machine

The Ubuntu website says that it 256MB of RAM is required to run the O/S.  However, if you can, it is always a good idea to allocate a bit more so that you can do things that little bit quicker.  I have set the allocated RAM here to  512MB.  Click “Next” when ready. Now you should see a screen that asks you to create your new Virtual HDD.  The chances are that you wont have one already so select “A new virtual hard disk” and press “Next”.

Creating a New Virtual HDD

When you delete a virtual machine from your computer, the virtual HDD remains.  The option “An existing virtual hard disk” can be used if you have a hdd from a previous Virtual Machine setup and you wish to simply re-connect the HDD to a machine.  Once you have selected to create a new HDD you will be asked to allocate the amount of space you wish to give the HDD in addition to where you want to save the HDD to.

Setting Virtual HDD Size

The specifications on the Ubuntu website say that you need at least 4GB of space on your HDD.  As I have a 1.5TB drive on my machine and space is of no issue to me, I decided to allocate 20GB to my machine.  If you can’t allocate as much, try and go between 10-16GB.  Once you have set the size of your HDD click “Next” and you will be taken to the “Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard” screen.

Complete Virtual Machine Setup

This shows you a quick run down of the settings you have specified on your machine.  As long as you are happy with this, click the “Finish” button which will take you back to the main Virtual PC screen.

Virtual Machine Ready To Run

Congratulations, you have successfully created your virtual machine and are ready to run it.

Step 3: Running Your Virtual Machine

Now that your machine is all setup and ready to go, all you have to do is click on the “Start” button and your machine will fire up.  You will notice that a new window opens and what happens inside that window is very similar to what happens when you turn you machine on at home.  This is because it is doing the exact same thing as your PC booting up, but within the environment of your PC (confused???).

Your machine attempts to boot, however nothing happens and you receive a message on screen (see below).  Why is this you ask?  Well although you have created a machine to run your O/S on, you haven’t installed the O/S yet.

No Boot Device Found Screen

That’s our next job.  First of all you need to mount the Ubuntu ISO disk image within the Virtual Machine so that it can boot from it.  This is very simple.  Simply Click on the “CD” option at the top of the screen followed by “Capture ISO Image”.

Select Capture ISO Image

In the following screen navigate to the location where you saved the ISO image from the Ubuntu website and click on “Open”.

Select ISO Image To Boot From

In order for the machine to read the ISO image, Click on “File” at the top of the screen and select “Reset”.  This is a way of restarting the machine.  After a while you will be presented with your very first Ubuntu Screen.

First Ubuntu Screen

There isn’t anything to tricky about this one, it is simply asking which language you would like to use.  Select English (providing you are) and you are then presented with the a series of options.

Ubuntu Boot Menu

Now we are ready to begin the installation. Select the second option down on the menu which labeled “Install Ubuntu” and the process will begin.

A point to note here is that the first time I attempted to install Ubuntu was using an older version (8.something(sorry I cant be more precise)).  There was a problem using this version with Virtual PC where by the O/S couldn’t detect the video mode of the machine it was running on.  The best i managed to do with this version was get it to run via the CD and to do this i had to modify the boot option to include the video mode.  Providing that you have followed the guide at the top and got the software that I stated, you shouldn’t have any problems.  I will also point out though that because of this bug (and that virtual machine seemed to take ages to boot up) , I decided to use another Virtual Machine package called Virtual-Box from Sun Micro-systems.  I will be post a tutorial later detailing setting up a virtual machine with this package (as my tutorials will be based on that rather than Virtual PC 2007 in the future, although the virtual machine package doesn’t matter much as the O/S will run the same).

Anyway, on with the installation.  You should see a screen like the following

Ubuntu Initial Install Screen

Don’t be alarmed and think that your install isn’t working.  This is quite normal and you could see this screen for up to 5 minutes.  Eventually once the machine has sorted itself out you will see the first proper screen of the install.

Step 1

This screen is pretty much the same as the screen before you get the boot options menu.  Simply select the language you want to use and press “Forward” to continue the installation.  The following screen asks you to set the time zone you are currently in.

Step 2

Simply click on your location on the map and then use the Zone drop down box to fine tune your country.  Once you have done this press “Forward” to advance to the Keyboard setup Screen.

Step 3

You shouldn’t need to change anything on this screen if you are using a standard keyboard for your country.  However, if you are not, simply select the “Choose your own” options at the top of the screen and select the correct keyboard type.  Press “Forward” when ready to advance to the Disk Setup Screen.

Step 4

This is where you can specify the size and number of partitions you wish to use on the O/S.  For this example, I only want one disk on my machine, so i have selected the “Erase and use entire disk” option.  This should be adequate for what we are trying to do here.  Click “Forward” to go to the Who Are You screen.

Step 5

This screen asks for some basic information to setup both the main user account of the machine and the machine name.  Fill in the details requested and select the Log In method.  I personally set it to require my password to log-in so that the machine is more secure.  When you have completed this screen click “Forward” to go to the last step.

Step 6

This screen shows you what you have selected in the previous steps.  Once you are happy with the options that you have provided click on “Install” and your machine will begin the installation process.  You will see a screen similar to that below during the installation.

Installation Progressing

The bar at the top tells you how far the installation has progressed while there is a nice little slide show below telling you what Ubuntu has to offer.  Once the progress bar reached 100% the machine will ask you if you want to restart.  Click “Restart Now”.  After a while, the machine will restart and you’ll see you first sight of Ubuntu, the loading splash screen.

Ubuntu Splash Screen

OK, so not very exciting I know, but after another short while you will get the Log in Screen.

Ubuntu Login Screen

Here you will see the username that you specified during the setup screens (Step 5).  Click on your username and you will be prompted to enter your password.

Ubuntu Enter Password Screen

Once you’ve entered your password, click “Log In”, wait a couple of seconds and you will be presented with the fruits of your labour, the Ubuntu desktop, your new, fully operational operating system.

Ubuntu Desktop

Congratulations.  You can now play around with Ubuntu.  You may find that you are restricted to a 800 x 600 screen resolution.  Although there may be a way around this (I haven’t looked into it as I use Virtual-Box), I couldn’t find an easy way to do this.  If anyone has achieved this, then please let me know as I would be interested to find out how to do this.

So as strange as this may sound, this is my first and last tutorial on using Ubuntu on Virtual PC 2007.  Next, I will look at what is needed to setup the same O/S on Virtual Box.  Until then, if you have any comments or thoughts then please feel free to post them.

Have Fun Peeps