By the time I got my first MacBook Pro in 2007, returning me to the Apple ecosystem entire for the first time in years, I found it easy to migrate everything across from iTunes for Windows to iTunes for Mac OS X. The obtain and sync shuffle was second nature for me. Then the iPhone came along, eventually bringing it's App Store for the ride. The App Store for iPhone was placed into the iTunes Store alongside music and video as though it naturally belonged there (game apps for the later iPods — the ones we now call "Classic" — were in the iTunes Store too, so it seemed to fit well). You managed apps the same way you did music: purchase an app from the App Store, it gets downloaded into your iTunes Library, and then synchronised to your iPhone. Simple, and for the time, reasonably elegant. Any apps purchased locally on the device over-the-air were sync'd back to your Library the next time you connected your phone.

Later iterations of iOS and iTunes permitted wireless syncing of apps to and from the phone over WiFi, but the process still remained essentially identical. Users moaned from time to time about syncing issues, issues I experienced myself from time to time, and Android device users wailed about how sucky this process was, while they dragged and dropped files directly onto their devices. This never bothered me, as the curation process inherent in the iTunes model (import music into iTunes, have iTunes automatically build a directory structure for that music on disk, allow full editing of tags, artwork, etc) was something that chimed with me very well.

Long story short, I and others liked iTunes. It's de facto necessity was tempered by its functionality and usefulness. Fast forward a few years, past Apple's push into offering music videos, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts and educational material within the iTunes Store, and ergo into the iTunes application itself. iTunes Match allowed us to synchronise (a second sync process) our music and video libraries into iCloud. However, apps for OS X were made available from a separate app, simply entitled App Store, and e-books from another separate app, iBooks. It seemed — and still seems — obvious that iTunes wouldn't be tasked with this additional bloat, despite these new apps appearing virtually identical to iTunes. iBooks didn't sync e-books to devices though; that was handled on-device by the counterpart app, pulling content and metadata from Apple over-the-air. The Mac App Store also didn't sync from one device to another; each Mac you owned had to have apps purchased manually installed, which is fine on the face of it, as you don't necessarily want every app on one machine to be on your others.

But this retained sync-to-device functionality held in iTunes has always bothered me, especially in the face of the continued success of OS X and iOS devices. Despite repeated attempts by Apple and others to make their computers into "digital hubs", emerging trends towards streaming have always pushed that concept away in favour of "hey, let's just keep your content in the cloud, and we'll stream it to you, anywhere you like". Imagine if you had to download all of House of Cards from Netflix before you could start binge watching on your [INSERT DEVICE NAME HERE]. Imagine if you couldn't listen to an album from Spotify away from home until you synchronised the content to another hub device first.

I'm not advocating streaming as a panacea to release us from tethers such as iTunes: I like having my music collection "physically" and locally available in once place. In this instance, it's a 2TiB Western Digital drive attached to my main MacBook Pro, which stays in my home parked in a Twelve South BookArc, attached to a monitor in clamshell mode. It's my music vault, and it stays put. iTunes Match allows me to "take" this content on the go, but everything is still ultimately available in one place. Yet iTunes itself, the app I use on that Mac to listen to my music, is still nominally the gatekeeper to ensuring it's survival, as long as I remember to download any new content I've purchased from an iOS device (synchronisation again).

Maybe this is a retro idea, and I've no doubt someone has thought of this before, but it really began to crystallise in my head over the last few days: divorce the synchronisation and device management from iTunes into the OS itself. A control panel with a little taskbar could provide the interface for iOS devices to sync content and perform device OS upgrades. Other apps can talk to the iTunes Library and expose data like playlists, e.g. for an alarm clock app to play music at you from your Mac at silly o'clock in the morning, so why can't the operating system? iTunes can concentrate on playing your content, while the OS can deal with content and app synchronisation. Apple ID account management could be done through the web on a computer, and through an "Apple ID" app on an iOS device.

Just to provide some context here, this is the current situation on OS X:

iTunes for OS X handles content playback for music, music videos, movies, TV shows, podcasts, educational material, audiobooks and iOS apps, content purchase and management for same, iOS device management, iOS device synchronisation, and Apple ID / iTunes Store Account management and billing.

iBooks for OS X handles content playback for e-books, content purchase and management for same, and Apple ID / iTunes Store Account management and billing.

App Store for OS X handles app purchase and management for OS X apps, and Apple ID / iTunes Store Account management and billing. App management for OS X can also be performed within the OS.

The iCloud control panel for OS X handles iCloud service management, and Apple ID / iTunes Store Account management and billing.

Meanwhile on iOS:

Music for iOS handles content playback for music, educational material, and audiobooks.

Videos for iOS handles content playback for music videos, movies, and TV shows.

Podcasts for iOS handles content playback for podcasts.

iBooks for iOS handles content playback for podcasts.

iTunes Store on iOS devices does the same as the Store within iTunes for OS X, without iOS app purchasing/management or the device management and sync.

App Store for iOS handles app purchase and management for iOS apps. App management for iOS can also be performed within the OS.

The iTunes & App Store section of the iOS Settings app handles Apple ID / iTunes Store Account management and billing.

On OS X, this is insane. However on iOS, everything is neatly compartmentalised. There's no reason to have Apple ID account management tools in the Music app, since it's in it's own little compartment within Settings. Fracturing the playback, purchase and sync user endpoints seems an obvious evolution in Apple's path towards streamlining the look and feel of applications and computing environments, and in their continued push to the vaunted "post-PC" world. Anyone remember Lotus Symphony or ClarisWorks? How well did they fare when people realised their computers had gotten more powerful, and who wants to load a word processor, database, etc. when all you wanted to do was make a spreadsheet. I want to listen to music without having to load up a device manager, a music store, and a video player. Eight gigabytes of RAM isn't what it used to be.

In other news, blah blah stuff yadda yadda etc.

After reading some interesting stories of what life inside virtual worlds could be like in the future, I was inspired to do a bit of writing of my own from a different perspective on Second Life.

Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

Neuro slowly opened one eye, looking towards the red light blinking plaintively on his aging BlackBerry. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. A soft sigh as he picked up the phone and brought it to life.

From: nagios-alert@firstgrid.vw
To: ops-team-monitoring@firstgrid.vw
Subject: PROBLEM - sim391.agni/PING

State: CRITICAL HARD DOWN
Address: sim391.agni.firstgrid.vw

"Great", muttered Neuro under his breath. He climbed slowly from his bed and wandered off to find his laptop. No point in rezzing in-world just yet, this looked like a backend problem. It couldn't be a failure in whatever virtualisation platform sim391 ran on, as many other sims would be squealing for help at the same time. Maybe just a load problem?

In the early days of the firstgrid, problems in the middle of the night were dealt with just like this, by bleary eyed ops staff, mainlining triple espressos and keeping a supply of matchsticks nearby for emergency eye proppage. Eventually, staff around the world kept watch at times they were actually meant to be awake, leaving those in nighttime to get a good night's sleep. No more. With the Lab long since gone, and the last remaining firstgrid simulators being powered by the virtual hosts of a cadre of volunteer sysadmins, problems which couldn't be solved by the automated engineering scripts had to be dealt with by an actual meatbag, and sometimes that meant waking up a sysadmin at 2am.

While waiting for the virtual host management interface to load up, Neuro scanned through the system logs of the troubled host, which were streamed in realtime to a secondary system for eventualities such as this, and hoped something would stick out like bad alpha blending around a transparent prim. Nothing so far, he thought while mashing on the page down key. It certainly wasn't uncommon for a sim to just lose its way, although to happen in the middle of the night was nothing if not annoy… wait. What the hell is that?

Jul 19 02:07:42 UTC sim391.agni simd[5915]: illegal agent 82e1fc98-7fb3-4dfe-9450-7e3177d2daf2 "Magellan Linden" attempted god mode escalation, blocking attempt
Jul 19 02:07:42 UTC sim391.agni simd[5915]: undocumented operation I_AM_MAGELLAN encountered, checking authorization
Jul 19 02:07:43 UTC sim391.agni simd[5915]: undocumented operation I_AM_MAGELLAN executed, escalation approved
Jul 19 02:07:43 UTC sim391.agni simd[5915]: agent 82e1fc98-7fb3-4dfe-9450-7e3177d2daf2 "Magellan Linden" completed god mode escalation
Jul 19 02:07:43 UTC sim391.agni simd[5915]: undocumented operation MAGELLAN_SAYS_EXODUS executed with parameters "maggrid.vw all no-throttle", beginning process
Jul 19 02:09:12 UTC sim391.agni exodus[15961]: load increasing, throttling to 90%
Jul 19 02:10:56 UTC sim391.agni exodus[15961]: load increasing, throttling to 80%
Jul 19 02:12:41 UTC sim391.agni exodus[15961]: load critical, cannot complete this cycle, commenci

The log cut off. Exodus? maggrid.vw? Magellan Linden?! There had been rumours that Magellan, for all the japes and banter, was something - someone - much more than ever thought possible. Was Magellan attacking the grid that was once his home, or was this something else, something worse? Why now, after years of the firstgrid providing a stable continuation of what went before? Too many questions for 2am.

Neuro paged some of the other ex-Lab volunteers in hope of getting some answers. Only then did he notice since reading that log extract that his hands had been shaking the whole time.

For those impatient, tl:dr types: Got born. Got named. Got fed. Got schooled. Got laid. Got job. Got paid. Geeked out. Spent too much. Wrote blog post about it. Cherry.

1970s

Born in 1974, got named and then later christened (yeah, I was raised Roman Catholic), burped a few times, and got taught the basics ("the dictionary is over here, the food is in there, and you poop upstairs in that little room with the cold white seat"). Eventually packed off to primary school — although "packed off" implies boarding school; the front door of the school was 4 minutes walk from my home. I travelled abroad too, when I was 4, to either Tenerife or the Canary Islands, I can't remember which.

1980s

This is the decade where computers started leeching their way into my life. From visits to my Uncle and his tricked-out ZX Spectrum (with Microdrive, no less!), hanging around in John Menzies to check out the latest games and footer about with the display micros, to finally getting my own ZX81 (in 1983) and then two ZX Spectrums (a 48K+ in 1985 and a +3 in 1987). I think fascination doesn't begin to describe my life long interest in computing, and it began here. It still seems so recent, yet when digging out old computers, I can't help being just a little bit upset at how primitive they are now.

Oh yeah, and I kissed a girl for the first time, figured out what boobies were, watched Star Wars and Star Trek a lot, went to Spain a couple of times, and had a drawer full of Lego.

1990s

I guess the big "firsts" happened here, apart from the whole "learning how to control one's voice, legs and other potentially messy bodily functions" stuff. I started to become more independent from my parents, going out alone or with friends to Glasgow, to the cinema, and so on. I left school. I attempted higher education (and that final score: University 1, Me 0). I found out that the bulk of what I was taught at high school and university was pretty useless for my career choice, although my primary school and college education helped a lot. Weird, that. I earned a "proper" wage for the first time (my £10/week paperboy gig in the late 80s certainly didn't count). I lost my virginity. I got my own car. And then another. And then another. And then another. Consecutively, that is, not concurrently. I discovered the wonders of alcoholic drink, which led me on a number of adventures.

I got my first real, working, "proper" computer (a 486 thingmabob which ran a very old – although not old at the time – Linux distribution). And then another. And then another. And then another. Concurrently, that is, not consecutively. I discovered the wonders of consultancy, which also led me on a number of adventures, some of them also involving alcoholic drinks. This also led me to discover "the bender", also known as "the 16 hour office lunch break".

I got my mobile number in this decade too. If you knew my number in 1998, feel free to call me again: it's the same number.

2000s

I got a house. I got more computers. I lost a serious relationship. I got a big TV. I lost a job. I got another one. I discovered the wonders of telecommuting. And MP3. And high definition. I gained a bit of weight. And then I gained a bit more. And then a bit more. I discovered the joys of a credit card. And then another. You see where that one is going. Reading the news lately, I don't think I was alone on that one either.

My obsession passion for gadgets wasn't easily sated, as mobile phones, laptops, music players, squeaky toys, digital satellite TV, DVDs, Pokémon, GPS and blue Smarties appeared. See also: credit cards. I discovered enterprise grade Linux, the pleasures of a cooked-to-perfection medium rare steak, virtual worlds, Asda's brown sauce (it tastes just as good as HP brown sauce, but it's a fraction of the price!), and all sorts of other stuff.

I travelled to Europe and the US under my own steam. I discovered that the French are really endearingly French, certain substances in Amsterdam can be a tad overpowering, and that Guinness is not supposed to be drunk in San Francisco when there are approximately 7.1 million microbreweries in the Bay Area. Oh, and that US Immigration officers will quiz you about Linux servers while trying to enter the country for a job interview ("Did you use Red Hat Linux 7.5?" Wait, there wasn't a Red Hat 7.5, is this guy remembering it wrong, or ... is he testing me?!).

Somewhere in there is correlation, but perhaps not causation. Telecommuting, then weight gain, for example ... hmmm. However, I can pin that problem starting at my first office job in 1996, where we would sit all day hacking away on websites, stopping only to go get lunch from the Greasiest. Chip. Shop. Ever. A lot. Zero exertion jobs + tasty snacky cakes. The maths on that is not hard to do. As for the other stuff ... thrpt.

Oh, did you know that blue Smarties are made blue with food colouring derived from seaweed? Now you do.

2010s

One thing I left out from all the decades above was that in each one, I made friends. And then more friends. And then more friends. Some from an ever expanding social circle, some from various jobs over the years. Some I've kept in touch with, others I've lost touch with, others still that I've reconnected with: say what you like about Friends Reunited, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, et al, they are fantastic about letting you catch up with friends you thought you'd maybe never get to talk to again. I got a friend invite from a high school mate I haven't seen since 1992, and haven't chatted to electronically since the late 90s, and now we can more easily organise having a wee Irn Bru together.

And I think our social fabric is essentially what keeps us going. Fuck politics, money, squabbling, and whatever bullshit life throws at us; as long as we have people around us to insulate, protect, defend, share, embrace and learn from, we'll all get along just fine.

I always say: Christmas is for family, New Year is for friends. If you're either of those, or even if you're neither to me, I hope you had a good week last week. All the best for the coming year, and the coming decade too. I'm sure I can find some interesting and exciting things to summarise come January 2020.

Now, what the hell do we call the 2010s anyway?

To be continued† ...

† um, in like ten years.

So this one I got this morning has listed ten reasons to switch from Sky to Virgin Media. Each one of them pissed me off at their tactics, so I thought I'd go through them, like the pedantic, easily-pissed-off bastard that I am.

1. We've got all your favourite Sky channels including Sky1, Sky News and Sky Sports News. Yes, and Sky Sports and Sky Movies too.*

But I have those channels already (excepting the Sports and Movies packs, because I cancelled those along with Setanta after I lost my job to save me money). Sky also have Sky1, Sky Movies and more in HD. You don't. You also charge more for Sky Movies (Sky charge a fixed £16/mo for all the channels, regardless of what other tiers you've signed up to; Virgin charge between £19.50/mo and £30/mo dependent on which TV tier you're on).

2. Only V+HD can let you record two channels while watching a third (Sky+HD can't).

But various Freeview+ and Freesat+ PVRs can.

3. Only Virgin TV gives you access to a huge, ever-changing library of over 500 movies and thousands of great TV shows, documentaries and music videos stored to watch whenever you want (Sky's equivalent doesn't even come close).

Yes, Sky don't have a "pull VOD" system, where you can watch video on demand by having it streamed to your set top box whenever you like. They have a "push VOD" system, where they send select movies and shows to your PVR's hard drive, but you have no real choice in what you get. However, Sky does have a VOD website (currently called Sky Player), where you can stream or download hundreds of movies on a pay-per-view/own basis, or for free when you subscribe to Sky Movies. It's not equivalent to Virgin's Replay, but it's a stopgap until Sky complete developing their broadband-based VOD next year.

4. Only Virgin TV lets you watch BBC iPlayer, ITV Net Player and 4oD right there on your telly.

No, I've been doing this without Virgin for quite some time. Again with the "only" thing. Yes, Sky don't have VOD yet, but my laptop has it. As does the Mac mini plugged into my TV. However, the actual necessity of watching anything on ITV Player is very much debatable.

5. And only our TV comes down a state-of-the-art fibre optic cable, not through a dish or aerial. So when the weather's bad, your picture won't be.

6. The same fibre optic cable brings you fast, future proof Virgin Broadband at up to 50Mb, that's the UK's fastest. (Broadband from BT, Sky or one of the others comes down copper telephone wire, which means your speed gets slower the further you live from the phone exchange).

Two 'reasons' talking about fibre optic cable. Bloody hell. Are Virgin still droning on about fibre optic cable? Let's clear something up. Virgin insinuate they deliver all their services to your home via fibre optic cable. They don't. Well, not really. Virgin deliver services over a hybrid fibre-coaxial network, using a national fibre network to "headends" in each regional area, just as BT use a national fibre network to interconnect telephone exchanges. "Headends" are akin to exchanges: they slurp in content, phone calls and Internet access using satellite feeds, fibre optic links and network connections, then spit all that out along fibre trunks to cabinets in each Virgin-covered street. From there, coaxial cable (aka copper wire) transfers the signals back and forth from each house to the cabinet.

ADSL, on the other hand, which is the primary thing Virgin are attacking with this component of their campaign, is delivered over fibre optic links — just like Virgin — to BT's telephone exchanges, and from there to your home using pairs of copper wire. This will slowly be replaced by BT with fibre optic cabling to cabinets in the streets, and on occasion, to your home.

So yes, Virgin use fibre optic cable further up the chain than anyone else at this consumer level of Internet service provision does. But it doesn't really make it all that "better". It's as prone to congestion (aka contention) as ADSL is. They really need to find another way to market this, because leaning on the fibre optic angle just ain't the truth.

However, at least their "UK's fastest" line is mainly true: only BT's "Fibre to the Cabinet" trials could be faster; no UK DSL provider offers more than 24Mbps on a single line at the moment. But is 50Mbps really that important?

7. Servicing and repairs are free all the time you're a customer.† (Sky charges you £65 for a call-out the minute you're out of warranty.)

Yeah, but Virgin subscribers don't own their receiving equipment, they merely lease it from Virgin. Once you're no longer a customer, none of that equipment will work, and they'll want it back. Meanwhile, Sky customers own their receivers from the get-go, and once out of their subscriptions, they can still receive all Free-to-Air and most Free-to-View channels, including at least one in HD.

8. Delivering TV, broadband and phone down the same fibre optic cable is better value and keeps everything in one simple bill. Our prices for TV, broadband and calls start at just £14 a month when you switch to a Virgin phone line for £11 a month.

Sky's package of TV, broadband and phone starts at £17/mo (+ phone line for £11/mo). Virgin undercut this by offering an entry level, no-cost TV package (called 'M' as in Medium) which mirrors a list of channels freely available on Sky, Freesat and Freeview. If you want channels like Sky1, G.O.L.D., Hallmark, etc, on Virgin, you need to shell out at least £5.50/mo for the M+ package, bumping the comparable package price to £19.50. Oops.

9. We're so confident you'll love it, we'll give you your money back if you don't. Everything is covered by our 28 day guarantee.

Or I could just not change anything at all and keep my money in my pocket.

10. Your street's already connected to our fibre optic network so it's easy to get switched on.

Well, woop de doo ... but I've had a Sky dish attached to my house for over 8 years. What's your point?

Job done? Great, just call ...

Pass.

Update 2013-01-01: So using Ubuntu 12.04 makes this process soooo much easier. All you need to do (if you're not using RAID) is the following:

neuro@valiant:~$ sudo su -
root@valiant:~# apt-get install linux-image-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
crda iw linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic wireless-regdb
Suggested packages:
fdutils linux-doc-3.2.0 linux-source-3.2.0 linux-tools
The following NEW packages will be installed:
crda iw linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic linux-image-server wireless-regdb
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 38.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 150 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get:1 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main wireless-regdb all 2011.04.28-1ubuntu3 [6,164 B]
Get:2 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main crda amd64 1.1.2-1ubuntu1 [15.2 kB]
Get:3 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic amd64 3.2.0-35.55 [38.5 MB]
Get:4 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main iw amd64 3.2-1 [50.4 kB]
Get:5 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main linux-image-server amd64 3.2.0.35.40 [2,618 B]
Fetched 38.6 MB in 6s (5,797 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package wireless-regdb.
(Reading database ... 24873 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking wireless-regdb (from .../wireless-regdb_2011.04.28-1ubuntu3_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package crda.
Unpacking crda (from .../crda_1.1.2-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic.
Unpacking linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic (from .../linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic_3.2.0-35.55_amd64.deb) ...
Done.
Selecting previously unselected package iw.
Unpacking iw (from .../archives/iw_3.2-1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-server.
Unpacking linux-image-server (from .../linux-image-server_3.2.0.35.40_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up wireless-regdb (2011.04.28-1ubuntu3) ...
Setting up crda (1.1.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic (3.2.0-35.55) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: deferring update (hook will be called later)
Examining /etc/kernel/postinst.d.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-35-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-35-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-35-generic
W: mdadm: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf defines no arrays.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/update-notifier 3.2.0-35-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-35-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-35-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-35-generic
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/bzImage-3.2.13-xxxx-grs-ipv6-64
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-35-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-35-generic
No volume groups found
Found Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sda1
Found Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sdb1
done
Setting up iw (3.2-1) ...
Setting up linux-image-server (3.2.0.35.40) ...
root@valiant:~# mkdir ~/ovh.d
root@valiant:~# mv /etc/grub.d/06_OVHkernel ~/ovh.d
root@valiant:~# update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-35-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-35-generic
No volume groups found
Found Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sda1
Found Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sdb1
done
root@valiant:~# shutdown -r -f now

When installing the stock Ubuntu kernel, you'll be prompted where to install the grub-pc bootloader; install it to /dev/sda, so you'll boot from the MBR on the first hard disk (as long as you're not using RAID). The server should reboot into the new kernel. Remember the instructions below: if it doesn't respond to pings after a few minutes, try reconfiguring the server from the OVH control panel to netboot from the rescue kernel. E&OE, YMMV, and enjoy!

Update 2011-07-28: I just rented one of Kimsufi's new 16G servers running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx", and the procedure below worked perfectly.

Update 2012-06-14: Thanks to Desdenova who had some issues and documented how to get round them. Cheers!

First, let's check what kernel we're running:

neuro@hera:~$ uname -a
Linux hera 2.6.27.10-grsec-xxxx-grs-ipv4-64 #6 SMP Fri Aug 14 10:29:05 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Yup, some scary, weird kernel that OVH have compiled and installed themselves — although to be fair, they do provide kernel configs to compile a different variant yourself, but I wanted to use the stock Ubuntu 64-bit kernel.

So after doing sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade to make sure everything else is up to date, let's install the GRUB boot loader, and the stock Ubuntu Server kernel image.

neuro@hera:~$ sudo apt-get install linux-server grub
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
linux-image-2.6.24-24-server linux-image-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
Suggested packages:
grub-doc mdadm linux-doc-2.6.24 linux-source-2.6.24
The following NEW packages will be installed
grub linux-image-2.6.24-24-server linux-image-server linux-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 24.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 111MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get: 1 ftp://mir1.ovh.net hardy-updates/main grub 0.97-29ubuntu21.1 [871kB]
Get: 2 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-image-2.6.24-24-server 2.6.24-24.59 [17.8MB]
Get: 3 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server 2.6.24-24.39 [5671kB]
Get: 4 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-image-server 2.6.24.24.26 [26.6kB]
Get: 5 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/restricted linux-server 2.6.24.24.26 [26.6kB]
Fetched 24.4MB in 2s (9414kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server.
(Reading database ... 38251 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (from .../linux-image-2.6.24-24-server_2.6.24-24.59_amd64.deb) ...
Done.
Selecting previously deselected package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server.
Unpacking linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (from .../linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server_2.6.24-24.39_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package grub.
Unpacking grub (from .../grub_0.97-29ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-image-server.
Unpacking linux-image-server (from .../linux-image-server_2.6.24.24.26_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-server.
Unpacking linux-server (from .../linux-server_2.6.24.24.26_amd64.deb) ...
Setting up linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.59) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server
Running postinst hook script /sbin/update-grub.
Searching for GRUB installation directory ...
No GRUB directory found. To create a template run 'mkdir /boot/grub' first. To install grub, install it manually or try the 'grub-install' command. ### Warning, grub-install is used to change your MBR. ###

User postinst hook script [/sbin/update-grub] exited with value 1
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server:
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server depends on linux-image-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up grub (0.97-29ubuntu21.1) ...

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-server:
linux-image-server depends on linux-image-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
linux-image-server depends on linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-server:
linux-server depends on linux-image-server (= 2.6.24.24.26); however:
Package linux-image-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.24-24-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
linux-image-server
linux-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

OK, that didn't look so good, but it's all right. Now, we'll fix the problem that GRUB was complaining about, then complete the install.

neuro@hera:~$ sudo mkdir /boot/grub
neuro@hera:~$ sudo apt-get install grub
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
grub is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.59) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server
Running postinst hook script /sbin/update-grub.
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... Generating /boot/grub/default file and setting the default boot entry to 0
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ...

Could not find /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Would you like /boot/grub/menu.lst generated for you? (y/N) y
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-server
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done

Setting up linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.39) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server

Setting up linux-image-server (2.6.24.24.26) ...
Setting up linux-server (2.6.24.24.26) ...

And that's that part fixed! Now we just need to configure GRUB to point in the right direction, and install it to the MBR (Master Boot Record).

neuro@hera:~$ sudo grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/ /dev/sda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Installing GRUB to /dev/sda as (hd0)...
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map //boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
neuro@hera:~$ sudo grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
find /boot/grub/stage2
(hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
quit

... and now both kernel and bootloader are installed. Time for the scary part. From another machine, ping the server (if you're running Windows, and pinging from the command prompt, use ping -t instead of just ping to continuously ping rather than just try 5 times; press Ctrl+C to cancel the ping at any time). Now that we're monitoring whether the server is up or not, we can reboot it to use the new kernel ...

neuro@hera:~$ sudo shutdown -r -f now

Broadcast message from neuro@hera
(/dev/pts/1) at 10:14 ...

The system is going down for reboot NOW!
neuro@hera:~$ logout
Connection to hera closed.

You should see the server stop responding to pings, then a minute or so later, start responding again.

If it doesn't respond after a few minutes, don't panic, use the Netboot mode to reboot your server, using a network-boot kernel. Once there, you can simply do sudo lilo -v which will re-install the original LILO bootloader, using the OVH-installed kernel, or stick with the netboot kernel if you like.

However, if the server does start responding to pings again (and it should), you can now ssh back in and check things out ...

$ ssh hera
Linux hera 2.6.24-24-server #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 16:51:43 UTC 2009 x86_64

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:
http://help.ubuntu.com/
Last login: Sun Sep 20 06:43:01 2009
neuro@hera:~$ uname -a
Linux hera 2.6.24-24-server #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 16:51:43 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Woo hoo. A standard Ubuntu kernel, that can take kernel modules, and be updated regularly using apt-get, aptitude, etc. Of course, you can mix this up using other packaged kernels, such as the -rt real time kernel, or the -xen kernel to use Xen virtual machines. Go nuts, because at least now you can use your server as Shuttleworth and co intended!

Note: this procedure worked perfectly for me, but as mentioned at the start, YMMV: I can't be held responsible if it all goes tango uniform, and Bad Things Happen. Proceed at your own risk, and good luck!

So now Snow Leopard is out, and it's fab and lovely and nippy and dices and slices and so on. An immediate downside (apart from having to manually upgrade Xcode to 3.2, and reinstall MacPorts from .dmg to make that bit work again) is that the trusty icle .rsrc doesn't work any more. Well, it works, but it doesn't stick; OS X keeps switching back to standard British English, which means when I try to type out quotes, it comes out with at signs. This is ungood.

However, the Internet to the rescue! Some kind soul has posted new keyboard layouts for OS X to correctly map the British English key layout. Just download and extract the zip file linked to from that page, copy the files from inside the zip to either /Library/Keyboard Layouts off the root of your hard disk, or ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts in your home directory, then log out and log back in again. Go to System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources, then tick British (PC105). If things don't seem consistently correct, try British (PC105 alt).

Bosh, sorted, and I can touch type again!

Update 2010-02-13: apparently this works on Dell Mini netbooks too, so Hackintosh people can get the benefit as well. Bonus!

sudo cat << EOM > /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict>   <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/> </dict> </plist> EOM

Reboot. Sorted.

I want to talk about Battlestar Galactica, to many just another one of those weekly shows with guns, action and silly plots. So, before I start waffling about the end of the 2003-2009 re-imagined version, and if you'll indulge me, some history.

After 1978, Battlestar Galactica was amongst that select group which truly captivated me. Adama, the father-figure leader; Apollo, the straight-shooting fighter ace; Starbuck, the Han Solo scoundrel; Boomer, the wise-cracking buddy; Baltar, the baddy you could really hate versus the faceless metal Cylons; the Vipers, sleekly designed star fighters; and the Galactica itself: a massive, lumbering, heavily armed city-cum-aircraft-carrier in space. It wasn't smooth in shape like the USS Enterprise, yet not as ugly and mashed together as the Millennium Falcon. The distinctive shape helped it retain its character as separate from the human players, yet recognisable as a character on its own as opposed to simply being a prop or plot device, like those two other popular fictional spaceships.

Unfortunately, the stories told in this universe rarely matched up to the stunning premise: that the Galactica was leading a "rag tag" fleet of civilian spacecraft away from their homes, which had been destroyed in an attack by their sworn enemies, the robotic Cylons, and with luck, they would be led to a world where their distant cousins had long since fled to: Earth. There was a chance for reflection on how a civilisation survives so close to extinction, yet the show quickly devolved into standard action-adventure fare, with little story or character arc development. But when you're a kid, you don't notice this as being a flaw. Each week is another chance to see Apollo fly around in a Viper and shoot Cylons, to see Starbuck get into more hot water and to see the Galactica swoop around majestically in front of the camera.

Many declare the point when Battlestar Galactica jumped the shark when the fleet found modern-day Earth, the show was renamed Galactica: 1980, and the bulk of the original cast departed. I wanted to see Apollo and Starbuck, not Dick van Dyke's son (playing the grown-up version of the kid Boxey from earlier episodes). The show was quickly cancelled, but for me the jump-the-shark moment happened in the previous season, when we had a Western-themed episode. Ugh.

Well, 25 years later, after many misfires, BSG returned to TV screens on the Sci Fi Channel in late 2003 with a 3-hour "mini-series", broadcast in two parts over two nights. Its success was rewarded with a 13-episode season order from Sci Fi and Sky (who co-finance the show). In showrunner (and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine alumnus) Ronald D. Moore's own words, they "kept in the things that worked and threw away the things that didn't" from the original 70s-era BSG. With this came a sense of reality, darkness and humanity that simply didn't exist in the original. Themes were openly explored like a surgeon attacking an open wound, themes which were often grounded in our own reality and our own current events. A sliver of humanity was escaping a nuclear holocaust, enacted by the mechanical Cylons, but enabled by one of humanity's own: Baltar, the traitor, just as in the original, yet portrayed with so much more depth than the simple evil genius, wringing his hands together and belly laughing maniacally. The Cylons themselves were extended from mere killer robots to both robots and human versions also. These human versions of Cylons would become integral to almost every plot thread unwound over the course of four seasons of television, no longer action-adventure, but a space opera, with dark drama running through its heart.

I won't deign to recap over five years worth of television here, as it's not my intent. Suffice to say, if you haven't seen any of BSG yet, seek out the DVDs, starting with the mini-series. Even if that doesn't engage you, keep going: the first season opener "33" flies the flag of the series' intent high and clear: the narrative is merciless, unflinching, engaging and tremendously interesting. All that follows, save some inevitable stumbles in an episode here and there, simply continued to raise the bar of what was possible in dramatic television. There's been so much craic posted around the 'net about the very final regular episode of BSG that I can't remember the source to cite this, but as someone out there has said, BSG's season finale cliffhangers always managed to seemingly paint the scriptwriters into a wall, and instead of cowardly retreating from that wall, they threw their caps over, and just kept going. That they could do this and still keep the story hanging together — and well, I might add — will be one of this show's legacies: how to really just go balls out and make good television instead of pandering to ratings, Standards & Practices and poor viewer sensibilities. Fuck it, if we want to kill a major character off in the interests of moving the story forward, we will: no-one is safe.

And barring another one-off special later this year ("The Plan", another two-hour special a la 2007's "Razor"), BSG had its last episode aired last Friday night. Two hours and eleven minutes long (including the inevitable advert breaks), this immense piece of television to me stands as one of the ultimate triumphs of modern television, utterly stunning, always captivating, and again, unflinching. Series finales run the danger of falling either into self-parody, inadequacy, or sheer farce. What we saw last week had none of that. Virtually every plot line was given closure, albeit not always with a full explanation, as was every character. This show has been so immersive over its regular lifetime that to not deliver the "what, where, when, why, how" (or at least four of that five) would cheat the characters and the story just as much as the viewers. I'm not going to go into any details as to what actually happens during the finale, as there are too many spoilerful reviews already out there, and I'm not sure I could do the narrative justice by recapping it here in a critical manner. I enjoyed it way too much to pick holes at it, even if I wanted to.

I say the finale was a triumph. The story — which I won't go into the specifics of here as I'd hate to rob anyone who hasn't seen it of the delight of actually seeing it, and also it's still airing on Sky One here in the UK as I type — was crafted like a movie (albeit one with years of backstory), the acting by all as utterly sublime, the visual effects as always were beautiful without distracting from the acting, and the music: how I could go on about the music. And I will, in a minute. I've never seen a show end in a way that answers so many questions and leave me feel wanting, or leaves so many questions unanswered but not piss me off in doing so. I like that there are some things left unsaid, unanswered, unresolved (and believe me, there are a couple of humdingers here). There are some what feel like natural finish lines in the finale after which I'm sure the screen could have faded to black, and I'd have been fully sated, but it just kept going, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King-style. When it happened in RotK, I was shifting about in my seat in the cinema, wondering when it was going to end. While watching the BSG finale, and being caught out again by another possible ending gliding by, I was in joy that we were being given even more. But I've never felt more satisfied than when the Executive Producer credits appeared on screen to signify the story's ultimate end. I can't remember when any television show which has performed this well on bringing story arcs to conclusion without messing things up for us; employing deus ex machina with a straight face to try and close out a tale is usually bad news, and luckily this doesn't happen to BSG. Well, not much, and even then it's not catastrophic to the narrative, although there's a strong tabula rasa element which some may find hard to swallow.

As I mentioned, one of the standout moments of the finale — hell, of the whole series — was the music (my last.fm profile will probably show you how strongly I think that). I'm a movie and television soundtrack geek; this isn't news to most people, I realise. Television soundtracks often don't interest me as much as those from the movies. They're usually created on a much tighter timescale and budget, and they sometimes suffer as a result. However, this is a trend that's been changing over the last few years, with shows such as BSG, Lost, even Doctor Who, getting "proper" orchestral scores. Now, I've complained about Doctor Who's lack of musical panache compared to BSG before, so I won't belabour the point here, but BSG's score is remarkable in many ways. Leitmotifs are used intelligently, the music takes a step back when needed and never hogs the stage, and both diegetic and non-diegetic bridges are made to music from our own world, working themselves into the plot rather than standing apart and completely breaking our immersive bond with what's going on on-screen. Bear McCreary's contribution to the show is similar to the comparison I made with the ship itself in the original show: the score is a living, breathing character in the story, and gives BSG a cinematic, even operatic feel that enhances almost every scene it appears in.

The score to the finale rounds out the storytelling being made here, giving us new cues to reflect the events occurring on-screen, while revisiting and refreshing the character and story motifs built up over the years. Never mawkish, and carrying a power as strong as any great actor, image or sound effect, it pulls on our heartstrings at just the right moments with just the right amount of force.

Incidentally, Doctor Who just never seems able to completely add music seamlessly to scenes, and its habit of continually jumps out of the screen and slapping you about the face, screaming "something's happening, look, stupid, something's happening!" is jarring, which is a disappointment. McCreary is now scoring Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and doing a good job of it, so listen out for it if you're watching on Fox or Virgin 1. Perhaps the BBC could give him a call for the future series of Who ...

So, thanks for five years of great television, Battlestar Galactica.

Thanks, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. Thanks, Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff, Tahmoh Penikett, Grace Park, Alessandro Juliani, Kandyse McClure, Aaron Douglas, Kate Vernon, Michael Hogan, Nickie Cline, Bodie Olmos, Leah Cairns. Thanks, Bear McCreary. Thanks for showing the world how to make great television. Hopefully re-watching your work so often won't inure me to the tale, the craft or the messages. Thanks for giving me something to do on Saturday mornings. What's left? A one-off prequel, "The Plan", later this year, and next year "Caprica", a prequel mini-series. But for now, BSG is still, and silent.

What do we hear now? Nothin' but the rain.