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July 31, 2007
In the army, or in civvie street?
Working as the proprietor of a company such as Well House Consultants is more like being in the army that being in a company in civvie street. That's the startling conclusion we came to at lunch time today, on a course where we have delegates who have been in both.
"When you're in the army, you're really always on duty, even when you're not" they tell me. "You may be on a weekend break, but something happens and your colleague who was supposed to be on duty isn't available, and you get called back in." The parallel - for the "civvie street" job - is that you finish at 5, and then can leave the office and forget about it until 9 O'clock on the next morning.
I confess to being surprised by the comparison; I've really not thought of it like that before, but there is a seed of truth. From a personal viewpoint, we are on call at virtually any time ... but then so is any small business. And from a team viewpoint, staff at any company really do - at least - represent their employer when they're off duty as well as on.
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More about Graham Ellis of Well House Consultants
July 30, 2007
An update on the West Wilts show ...
As you know, I attended the West Wilts show on behalf of Well House Consultants - very much with the view of getting us more out there and more known in the community - i.e. more of a marketing than a sales exercise. And as such, I intended to have a "train panel" or two there - so that I could pull in both booth-manning support, and general interest, to our display. An arrangement to the mutual benefit of all concerned ;-)
Very much a "low cost show" as far as we're concerned - we had (or should have had) a medium sized table on the Federation of Small Businesses stand, but it turned out that on the Thursday that the FSB booth was smaller than intended and our table was tiny. A little negotiation with the show organisers, and we moved across to a stand of our own for the Friday and Saturday.
How was the show?
For the hotel - the business to business relationships - the people walking up and down the aisles were not of the typical profile I would have chosen. Business people have businesses to attend to, and the demographics of the people passing by had a big bias to the retired and to the very young - the "Lifeline" people on the booth opposite us were doing a roaring trade in handing out leaflets to the potentially vulnerable, and the roof of the tent was filling up with balloons that had been accidentally released by kids collecting them from all the various stands.
And yet ... good contacts were made. I'm not shouting / listing them all here, but I know you'll see comment on the Horse's Mouth in the future concerning some of the seeds sown.
For the train - we had a good chin wag with a lot of people who remembered how the train used to be. And a good few who said they won't use it these days due to price / overcrowding / inappropriate services / filthy conditions. And we also spoke to a lot of discerning and thoughtful people - got the message out and asked them to pass the message on to the decision makers and major influencers. Talking of whom ... we also got two of those major influencers on the stand.
Graham in discussion with Andrew Murrison, MP for Westbury and Shadow Defence Secretary.
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July 29, 2007
Generating traffic for network testing
"Why do you have a random number generator in a scientific language" ask some newcomers to the world of programming ... "shouldn't programming be an exact science?". Well yes, and no. It turns out that a random number generator is exceedingly useful in some instances. Here's a real, live example from last week.
In order to test a computer network under load, packets of [[noise]] must be sent between two devices up to the capacity of the line. Rather than have all of the packets of the same size, which would be unnatural, the packets have to be a mixture of small ones (80% of the data must be in small packets), medium size ones (5% of the data) and large ones (the final 15% of the data).
The first - obvious - way to generate the data is 80 small packets, 5 medium ones and 15 big ones. That's wrong - you need to adjust the proportions, increasing the number of small packets and decreasing the number of big ones, since it's the amount of data, not the number of packets that we're looking at. But then even that's going to give a distorted set of traffic with a large batch of small packets followed by a number of medium ones and a number of larger ones. The overall distribution will be correct, but the test results will be broken due to the false patterns in the noise data.
The next approach is, indeed, to bring in random numbers. You start by working out the proportion of PACKETS of each size that are needed to generate the appropriate amounts of DATA. You then take a series of random numbers between 0 and 1 (decimal numbers!) and you compare each random number to the series of proportions - perhaps up to 0.94, you'll send out a small packet, from 0.94 to 0.97 it will be a medium packet, and above that a large packet.
That's better - MUCH better. And indeed I wrote a Tcl proc to illustrate the algorithm during last week's course. Source code.
One of the problems with a program such as this is that it will never produce the same results twice - in one way, that's good as the traffic it represents is inherently different each time anyway, but on the other hand it means that any oddity you see as it is run won't be reproducable. So we can "seed" the random number generator - i.e. give it a know starting point / record the starting point so that we can, if we must, re-run a particular test case. And, yes, this technically means that it isn't random at all but rather pseudorandom.
Here's the result of me running my test code:
Dorothy:~/tcl grahamellis$ tclsh pk4.tcl
1185718234
80 3 15
79 5 15
29 10 59
62 9 7 1 5 12
Dorothy:~/tcl grahamellis$
Firstly, I reported the seed. Then the percentage of traffic in my test pattern of each of the 3 sizes (first three tests) and each of the six sizes (final test). Looks good - I have chosen NOT to output the full test sequence on my blog as it would make it rather long and extremely boring.
Where from here?
In practise, even a straight random distribution isn't perfect. Typically you'll have a long series of small packets after each big packet as the small packets are supposed to take line priority, and a number of them are likely to get queued while a medium or log packet is sent.
The you;ll be looking at traffic models where the bandwidth is less that 100% used, and you'll need to put random timing gaps in. Excecpt they won't be random, because once again after a long packet there's likely to be a backlog of smaller ones queue and - just like you find when you're waiting in line to check in at the airport - it can take a few minutes of flurried activity to clear the backlog once the check in agent has spend some considerable time sorting out the gentleman who brought along his wife's passort by mistake, or the lady who wants to travel on today's flight even though she failed to turn up with her unchangable ticket that had her booked for last Friday.
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Stringing together Tcl scripts
If you have a series of Tcl scripts that you want to run in a sequence, you can
call all of them up in a master script using a series of source commands. This command switches input from the current script (sources) to the new source given as if the text of the sourced file was copied in to the original file from which the source was run at that same point.
Can it be that easy? Not quite - you may have to deal with debris left from previous commands. Although Tcl will not (in most circumstances) let you use a variable that does not exist, there are a few exceptions and if these exceptions are used by the sourced file, you could be in trouble by not starting from a clean sheet. Some of the commands you need to watch are:
append This command will create a new variable if it does not exist, but alter an existing variable if it does exist. If your sourced file uses an append on a variable that is assumed to be initially empty, then a series of calls to that file can cause a buildup of data which you do not want to happen.
lappend This command will create a new variable if it does not exist, but alter an existing variable if it does exist. If your sourced file uses a lappend on a variable that is assumed to be initially empty, then a series of calls to that file can cause a buildup of data which you do not want to happen.
info exists If you check whether a variable exists as a part of your script to see whether it's just started, bear in mind that with a series of sourced files, it may actually exist from something you've previously pulled in.
array names If you have an array set up in one sourced file and then use that same array in a second sourced file, assuming it to start empty, then commands such as array names will reveal the old information to the new sourced file.
open You should close files once you open them. I know that files do get closed at the end of a script run, but if you source a series of files you can end up with a build-up of open files. This can be a particular issue if one sources file writes to a file, then the next opens it to read it back. Run as two separate Tcl commands, it will all work fine as the file is flushed and closed, but with two files of Tcl sourced from within a single script, it's another matter.
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Latercomer to the technology
"I am on the 234 - can I get you a cup of coffee on my way in?"
I've mislaid my simple old mobile phone, and had Lisa's (tooooo many buttons) jobbie with me yesterday at the West Wilts show - alone on early stand duty as it's pretty pointless having any more there to open up a very simple booth and meet the few early birds.
Now those of you who know me well will know that I'm very selective in which technologies I adapt and adopt, and that I'm not someone who's easy to reach on a mobile phone ("has to be turned off - I'm training") let alone by text. In fact - I'll admit that I had never sent a text in my life. Until yesterday.
Great to hear from Sion that he was on his way. Very thoughtful in texting rather than phoning, knowing I might well be talking with someone about hotels, courses, trains .... but I couldn't resist the thought of that coffee. "Love one, Tnx" I replied. And - help - I'm into the wrld v txt nw 2!
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July 28, 2007
West Wilts - no longer Wet Wilts - show
A much better day at the West Wilts show. We've moved to our own, and bigger, stand
and outside, wood chippings and a bit of sun do miracles
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July 27, 2007
The Gdansk fireball
I listened, open mouthed, speechless, enthralled as the old lady told me how she and her family escaped (or rather - some of them) escaped from Gdansk / Danzig - the Baltic port under German occupation at the time when it was bombed to a raging inferno by the allies during the second world war. I forget exactly what neighbourhood mission I was on at the time, but this old lady of Polish origin had survived, come to the UK had a full life with her husband and was now living as a widow quietly in Melksham just a few doors up from us. And she blew me completely off track that day - a blowing that I'm very grateful for the experience.
I understand that Mrs Brindle passed away, a few days after having a stroke, last weekend. I was honoured to have known her, even "en passant". A little piece of history slips away; what were the experiences of the many become the experience of the few and then they splutter too.
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July 26, 2007
West Wilts Show
The bi-annual West Wilts show is taking place today, tomorrow and Saturday in Trowbridge, and I have agreed to take a table for Well House Conultants and Save the Train on the Federation of small businesses stand.
Of Course, being a small business organisation thay had booked a small stand. No - that's unfair; the stand this time is, I'm told, much smaller that the stand they had last time. And I screwed up my dates too and had a course this morning ... so couldn't arrive until later.
The result? I'm squeezed in between a "feel your breasts" exhibit selling health advice CDs and equipment to check your ((afforesaid body parts)) and an IBM software supplier who's junior team were great to talk to, but really didn't know why they were there. Oh - wait - someone else has arrived even later than me, and we've had to squeeze in a mobile beer pump of the sort you would use at a folk festival. I ended up opening the two halves of my display, book like, to show people each section as I talked with them. Turned out to work remarkably well.
Outside the marquee that we're in, the rain doth pour and the site turn into a mini-Glastonbury; I really pity the outdoor exhibitors - I only stopped briefly at one booth, and I know that others were skipping them too.
But lest you think I'm complaining, that's far from the case. There's always someone who's got far more of a struggle with the conditions than I have, and I really enjoyed myself. Back for more tomorrow.
I have, mind you, taken steps to get a little more space tomorrow. If you're in Trowbridge, come along and see us - same building, different booth. I'll post up more pics at the end of the day.
Posted by gje at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)
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AgtInvoke - a command to drive Agilent Tcl software extensions
In Tcl, there's a lot of commands available already - and there would be a lot more if separate commands were provided for each operation you might wish to perform. So some of the commands that are provided are really megacommands that wrap a whole lot of others up in a single group.
Let's take string handling as an example. There are scan and format and append commands available, and there's what I'll call a megacommand called string which takes a second parameter calling up a particular subcommand - something like string match or string length or string trim. Other megacommands include info and file and clock.
Tcl is a library to be built with other proprietory code, and sometimes that other code can be included as additional Tcl commands. I'm running a Tcl course this week, for a customer who's using a Tcl that's been built by Agilent for use with some of their equipment ... and the sample code Dave has with him includes lots of calls to AgtInvoke.
Now I've never come across AgtInvoke before, but looking at the syntax of the code, it's very clearly a sommand with at least one level of subcommand - and this drives the whole Agilent-specific end of the code. It's a very neat way of doing things. Of course, I'm not able - as a generalist - to be able so say exactly what each AgtInvoke does - but I can (and have) guided my customer through the details of the Syntax calls to at, and shown him how - very neatly - the Agilent folks have extended Tcl by adding just the one extra command.
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July 25, 2007
On flooding in Wiltshire and elsewhere in the West of England
Lisa's family, who live half way around the world from us, have heard the news that there are major floods here in the West of England, and wrote to ask if we are effected / all right. I'm quoting from Lisa's reply here ...
We've been in an enviable oasis, both the house and the hotel. Some rain, yes. But not more than "normal". The problem is that it's been pretty steady this summer, so the ground's pretty saturated. It's been the rivers that have been swelling, and we're not that close by to them.
Today was gloriously sunny, and most of the affected areas are starting to gain their ground back. It was very hard to take it in that just the other side of town had roads closed and vehicles abandoned. We didn't have to go out of town, so we ourselves saw very little of it. But hotel guests coming to stay reported that their drive, one that should have taken three hours, took ten...and this, along with with television reports, had us seeing the news right along with you...affecting people way far away. But truth is, there was massive flooding as close as two miles from us and the worst areas were just an hour away. We were quite lucky.
On a very local / specific note, the buildings have not seriously been effected. Some of the big bay windows at home in our 1813 house have a design weekness that lets water in when it rains heavily and blows in a certain direction, but I've seen no problem there. And a temporary tarpaulin over the larder at Well House Manor - and outbuilding that's at the end of our "refurb" list - held well. The lights which are inset into the ground and gave us a great deal of trouble over the winter stood up well, in spite of being covered by several inches of water at one time. Mind you, they're now swimming pool lights - so they damned well should have stood up!
My pictures from a previous flood
Posted by gje at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)
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July 24, 2007
Incident in Melksham
I don't often write too much personal family stuff here. I love and care for - very much - all my folks but I also respect their privacy and so I don't shout about them too loudly and proudly even though in my heart I might like to.
However, I'm making a brief exception here. Have a look at this story in the local paper - Wiltshire Times Article. One of the victims in the third incident described was my daughter's partner, and he was left unconscious on the ground, needing to be hospitalised. He looks a bit of a mess, and is now recovering at home. No significant long term effect, I understand - thank goodness. As part of his job, working in the town until late at night, Tom is often around at hours that most of us are tucked safely up in bed - gentle, but aware of some of the violent streaks around.
Our hearts and support are with the four who were involved in the incident, and with those in the other incidents too. We're around to help in any way you can, though it does seem that a few words such as these and time will be the best healers.
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July 23, 2007
Radio coverage for railway issues
Do I just get rather blasé about things at times? Maybe ... a phone call to return, and it turns out to be a BBC interview looking for comment prior to the release of tomorrow's rail white paper. 40 seconds to put a case.
Let me see - from a customer's viewpoint, I would like to see it leading to trains of an adequate capacity (not badly overcrowded) running at times that they're wanted by people who wish to travel (and not to a timetable designed to suit the convenience of operation first and foremost), with an appropriate number of backups / spares to make them relaible, and at a sensible price. And how to achieve that? Now there's the $64,000 question - but I did point out the complex bureacracy of the current system, and all the non-passenger interests it feeds. Thinks that bit may have been "off recording".
BBC, Radio 5 live, 06:35 tomorrow!
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Melksham or Weymouth? Meal or day out?
re: Weymouth
So says the title of an email corespondence that's going on at the moment, concerning plans to meet up for an Indian Meal with friends in Melksham this evening. Isn't it amazing how off-topic we can get at times.
Let me tell you about Weymouth, though.
We're arranging a special trip by train:
* From Melksham to Weymouth
* On Sunday, 5th August
* Departure at 08:15, return at 19:50, with 7.5 hours in Weymouth
* 14.50 for Adults and 5.00 for children
* Tickets from Well House Manor or the Melksham Tourist Information Centre
Weymouth offers all the seaside attractions and much more - there's the Deep Sea Adventure, Hope Square, Brewer's Quay, the Timewalk, the Tudor House, Nothe Gradens and Fort, Radipole Lake Swannery, and the Sea Life Park, all within an easy distance of the central railway station.
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July 22, 2007
Behind closed doors?
I'm a great one for talking in the open, expressing my views and thoughts here on "The Horse's Mouth", sharing technical tips rather than squirrelling them away by myself. so why no entry for two days - perhaps my longest gap.
As a hotelier now, as well as a technical trainer, there's customer confidences to consider. For sure, I can come up with the odd ripping yarn, the odd saucy tail, the odd incredible story. But discretion in some of these things is my watchword. And do you really want to read about people's habits of dumping their fag ends?
Not all of the things I do are short term; there's a display to be prepared for an upcoming booth at the West Wilts show, there's text to edit, spellings to check, though to be given. It'll be shared here in due course, but not yet. That's partly me wanting to have a big pzazz presentation, and partly because some of the apsects - the "Save the Train" ones - are best on other forums.
And then there's other things which are best kept behind closed doors; Asda are looking to build a store on the edge of town, and had a display at the Assembly Hall yestrday to meet the locals. We went along to their 10 a.m. start event, very much as supporters of appropriate development, and were met by a gent who took an aggressive attitude - I think he felt that he was there to calm the proles and got nervous when asked questions that required answers that weren't very easy. I'm not going to report the full details - rather I'm following up behind closed doors.
But I can tell you it's a sunny morning here at Well House Manor. We're done- I think - with all the travel problems of the last day or two; people leaving and finding no trains running, or driving towards here and finding the M4 blocked. But breakfast service calls, so I'll be on my way again ....
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July 19, 2007
Till the cows come home
I took a walk last night in the countryside behind our house - the public footpath off he lane that runs between is as 404 and our neighbour at 404B. And here in the fields, the cows are grazing on Woollamore farm.
Over the hedges, the houses of Melksham Spa look our over the countryside of the Avon Valley; we live in one of these blocks, built nearly 200 years ago as lodging houses for visitors coming to the town to partake of the waters
Woollamore farm itself has organic accreditation, and the farmhouse itself is a listed building that's even older than our Spa house. Alas, the fields of the farm are scheduled for the development on the new George Ward school, so this walk and these pictures will be of historic interest in a few years.
And how did Mike and Tony - two PHP delegates - manage to sneak in here? Ah - this week's PHP course and we got on to image handling again! You can see what an interesting and varied week this has been - and a pleasure in all quarters.
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July 18, 2007
PHP Standalone - keyboard to screen
PHP is a web language. Yes. And No. You can use it "standalone" too, and we often do so; to develop a whole lot of functions for web use in PHP, then duplicates in some other language, would be frankly silly after all.
And so it is that during the current course, I've been running rather more demos from the command line than I usually would - it suits the group, and works well. And I've made an interesting discovery - that the phpinfo function reformats its output well for the command line. Let me show you ...
grahamellis$ php
<?php phpinfo() ?>
phpinfo()
PHP Version => 4.3.10
System => Darwin earth-wind-and-fire.local 7.9.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.9.0: Wed Mar 30 20:11:17 PST 2005; root:xnu/xnu-517.12.7.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh
etc
PHP Core
Directive => Local Value => Master Value
allow_call_time_pass_reference => On => On
allow_url_fopen => On => On
always_populate_raw_post_data => Off => Off
etc
PHP Variables
PHP_SELF => -
_SERVER["MANPATH"] => /sw/share/man:/usr/share/man
_SERVER["TERM_PROGRAM"] => Apple_Terminal
_SERVER["TERM"] => xterm-color
_SERVER["SHELL"] => /bin/bash
_SERVER["PERL5LIB"] => /sw/lib/perl5:/sw/lib/perl5
_SERVER["TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION"] => 100.1.6
_SERVER["USER"] => grahamellis
I never cease to be impressed with PHP ...
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July 17, 2007
Party in the Park - review
Last Saturday's Party in the Park was a chance to meet old friends and new - the day when everyone who is anyone (and anyone who is not everyone) comes out to the park to the party, or to the town's streets to see the carnival.
This year, I helped with a stand at Party in the Park and got a few minutes to go around and take a few snaps too. I know it's not saying much, but it was the best weather of the week, and the crowds were out.
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July 16, 2007
Changes in advertising cut lines / Buscot / Tcl course
Please look at the above for at least 2 minutes as it probably won't appear again in this paper for six months So says the last line on the bottom of an old advert displayed on the wall of the Village Shop in Buscot, Oxfordshire, where Lisa, Dad and I had afternoon tea yesterday.
Buscot Village Shop
The Information age has changed our world completely - and such a "cut line" wouldn't work these days - or would it? I'm going to be emailing some good business friends over the next hour or two to let them know about an extra Tcl course that we're running next week, and I'm very tempted to use it as my subject line.
Buscot - Cheese Wharf on the river Thames
Link - more pictures of Buscot
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July 15, 2007
is there a lookup function in php?
Search engines often bring visitors to our web site ... usually to a relevant page for them, but sometimes to the wrong page on the right site. Here's an edited copy of an answer I've just sent to one such arrival, who was so upset at getting the wrong page that he wrote to me twice - two different emails - within a few minutes. I
1. Explain the problem with search engines and
2. Give a pointer to the answer that "George" - not his real name - was asking.
Why did you land where you did?
George, following up further I've had a look at our log files and I think you probably searched for
is there a lookup function in php
on Google, which brought you to the page that you emailed me about as the 6th site it suggests for this term.
Search engines have improved hugely over the years, and the proportion of rogue pages offered has dropped - but it's still a serious issue. The fact that you went down as far as the sixth page being offered rather shows how this is a very general problem and not specific to our site.
We do try to assist visitors to our site who arrive via any of the search engines at pages which aren't quite what they're looking for - there's plenty of navigation links on our pages (which I notice that you did use) and indeed we analyse the search term used by all Google arrivals and provide a series of extra links under our "data mine" section on the landing page that was presented to you.
Can I ask you to get back with me further with your suggestions as to how we can help people land more accurately on our web site and / or to then navigate to the material they need. It's in everyone's interest to have these things tailored as best as possible.
What is the answer to the question asked?
If you haven't solved your question yet, please let me know a little more about what your wanting to "look up" in PHP, and I'll drop you a full answer. As it is, you MIGHT be looking for the in_array function if your're looking up in an array, for an SQL query if it's in a database, or something like a preg_grep with an embedded file if you're wanting to search as file. As the page you landed on says, "There's a function to do that" .... the problem is identifying which one!
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July 14, 2007
Party in the Park
Today was "Party in the park" in Melksham, and I was running the joint Save the Train / Melksham Railway Development Group stand - setup from 11:30, open at 14:00, close at 18:00 ... and, yes, I enjoy this sort of thing.
As you can see, the weather smiled on us and I couldn't resist snapping this picture of "Brutus" - probably not his real name - enjoying a refreshing drink of water. I've many other pictures too, and snippets to write, but they can wait for the morning. Just for the moment, I want a relaxing cool down and a good night's sleep!
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July 13, 2007
Apache, Tomcat, Jakarta, httpd, web server - what are they?
If someone says "Apache" to me, that's a warning - a warning to listen very carefully to what they're saying and evaluate what they mean; the term has changed - been used (and abused) over the years and it would be so easy to talk to someone, or train someone, on the wrong product.
The original Apache Web Server followed on from the very first web servers such as the NCSA Server and was and remains an excellent web server - used to serve the majority of domains that exist on the internet, and greatly enhanced over time via Open Source contributions. Really a fantastic piece of software.
The setup that the Apache folks created for their web server - allowing for contributions which are rolled back into the product and managing those contributions - is so good that others want to use it too. And so the Apache team grew into the Apache Software Foundation, with the mechanism used not only for their original web server, but also for many other projects. And this lead to a degree of confusion with "Apache" having multiple meanings, and the web server is now officially known as Apache httpd since it's a program known as "httpd" - the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Daemon.
Amongst the extra projects that form part of the Apache Software Foundation feifdom are numerous Java langauge based projects, and rather than host each of them separarately, they're known under the collective project name of Jakarta. And one such sub-project was Tomcat - also known as Jakarta Tomcat and Apache Jakarta Tomcat.
Tomcat is a web server too, and you may wonder at the Apache people in welcoming into their club a piece of software that appears to compete with their original httpd. But actually it doesn't - it's rather like having two different pieces of public transport and suggesting that a Boeing 737 competes with a Stagecoach bus. I'll contrast the web servers in a minute.
Tomcat has proven to be a good web server too - a very good web server - and so popular that it has now been split out of the Jakarta cluster and is a project in its own right - thus you have the Apache Tomcat web server.
So ... if I'm asked about Apache or The Apache Web Server or Apache httpd or httpd, then I'm probably looking at the web server that's used for the majority of domains, and is characterised as follows:
• A file server, great for sites where lots of different files are served out
• Excellent tailorable modules and security options - superb flexibility
• Supports programs (via CGI, PHP, etc) in many programming languages
• Many facilities to act as an internet-facing server to support other servers "behind".
If you set up a free or cheap web site, you'll probably find that your hosting company is using httpd - but there's nothing cheap about the facilities it offers!
And ... if I am asked about Tomcat or Jakarta Tomcat or Apache Jakarta Tomcat or Apache Tomcat, then I'm going to be looking at the Java based web server that's used much more often behind the scenes for larger applications; it's characterised as follows:
• An application container, where an application is run in stored in memory and run time and again
• Excellent facilities for retaining data from one "hit" to the next and handling big jobs
• Supports Java code in the form of JSPs and Servlets - also tag libraries such as Struts and Spring.
• Many facilities for being used as a "behind" server - it can even use other protocols such as AJP and doesn't have to use web protocols at all!
You see how different they are? Would you like ideal facilities of BOTH in your own application? If you would, you can - in fact the majority of delegates we train on web server technology are using an httpd server to face the customer / internet, which calls on internally to a Tomcat server which contains their larger applications. It's designed to work well and it does work well - just like you would catch a bus to the airport, fly a long distance, then catch another bus to your final destination - not competitors but co-operators.
We run training courses on Deploying both servers in combination and also on Deploying httpd under Linux. We've another course that looks wider that just httpd - our LAMP course that covers Linux, Apache httpd, MySQL and Perl / PHP deployment. There are many options that you might want to use in your configuration; some web server setups comprise quite a number of interacting elements - that's no bad thing; by keeping the complexity hidden on your web server, you can provide a nice, single access point, easy to use web site for all your clients visiting your pages and running your programs.
See also:
Load balancing with mod_jk
Choosing between mod_proxy and mod_rewrite
A comparison between http, ajp and https protocols
Posted by gje at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)
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July 12, 2007
Business events in Melksham
If you're wondering at the absence of any entry here yesterday ... it's because I had a BUSY day as on-the-day event administrator for a group of about 18 folks who took over Well House Manor for their own training course. The group as a whole met in our larger room - "The Wilts" - which can seat up to 50 theatre style (though they had it arranged as a boardroom), and then sections of the group broke out for alternative lectures / discussions in "The Berks". With two morning drinks and snacks services, and one mid-afternoon too, I was kept on my toes!
It was a lovely day, and we chose to serve lunch in the marquee - we can offer a wide variety of food, this group choosing a cold buffet but with hot potatoes, self service.
With less than two dozen delegates, there was plenty of seating space at lunch - with the marquee, we can seat 8 to a table allowing us to feed a complete Wilts Theatre full of 50 people.
Posted by gje at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)
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July 10, 2007
0800 043 8225 - a new phone number for Well House
I don't enjoy leaving a message on an answerphone - the lack of feedback as I talk makes me nervous, and I'm never too sure that my message will have been received, so I often prefer to leave things and call back later, or try another supplier if this is my first contact. But with a separate headquarters and training centre / hotel (for other good reasons not associated with the phone system!), there are time when there's no-one at immediate hand to answer customer calls. Our answerphone message is as friendly as it can be, but we still get far, far too many hangups.
Discussions with BT have indicated that setting up a call transfer/ forwarding capability would have a not insignificant monthly ongoing cost and that in order to change the call routing, someone would physically have to be present at our headquarters each time which would be highly inconvenient. So - we've taken a fresh look at current and future needs and we're setting up a brand new scheme. You'll see it start to appear on the web site very shortly.
If you're calling Well House Consultants - for accommodation, for events, or for training - the number to call is 0800 043 8225. This is a freephone number - called from a UK landline it won't cost you anything. Usually, that number will reach Lisa or Graham in the office - but when we're both out of the office it will be diverted elsewhere - perhaps to our mobiles, to The Manor, or in due course to another member of the team who can help.
Our "geographic" numbers such as 01225 708225 are well out there and well publicised. And indeed it might be lower cost for callers from certain mobile packages to call those numbers rather that the freephone number. So such numbers will be retained; we remain committed to providing our customers with the most cost effective ways of getting in touch, and we do not have any premium rate numbers where you pay us as you call.
Announcment - July 2007 We encourage all telephone callers to contact us via this number, as it's routed to our team member who's on phone duty at all times, even when the office is closed. That team member will be one of our own staff rather than a call centre operator, and we have a target that 80% of calls to the number should be fully answered by the initial contact you'll speak with. Services covered via our 0800 number include: Calls to 0800 numbers are free of charge from regular UK landlines; please check with your telephone service provider for charges from mobile phones, international locations, hotel rooms, etc. You are very welcome to call us on our "geographic" numbers if you prefer: |
Posted by gje at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)
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July 09, 2007
Keep in touch with PHP, Perl, Python and old friends too
This year - 2007 - we'll be celebrating Geekmas on 24th and 25th November - so that's a date for your diary. It's a weekend technical get together for old friends and new, to explore the latest in Perl, Python and PHP, to listen to others talk of their uses and (ab)uses of these technologies and others ... and to have a darned good curry.
We make no charge for attendance at Geekmas - held at Well House Manor - and we provide everything from arrival snacks through lunch to afternoon tea. If you want to stay overnight, we'll be delighted to reserve one of our rooms for you, at the delegate rate of 70.50 per night (that's single or double occupancy, including breakfast(s) and VAT), and if you join us for a curry on the Saturday night, we ask everyone to chip in as we split the bill - it works out at about a tenner.
Much more to follow on the Agenda later on; please put this in your diary, and please email us (already, yes) via graham@wellho.net if you would like to attend, and if you would like us to book a room for you. Would be great if I could put you - yes YOU - down for half an hour's talk too!
Links to Geekmas past - here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Breakfast at Geekmas 2006
Geekmas 2006 - one of our technical sessions
Well House Manor - our venue in 2007 once again
Posted by gje at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
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Useful links: Python training, Perl training, PHP training
July 08, 2007
High summer at Well House Manor
The weekend in pictures .... after the wettest June on record, the first full weekend in July offerd us some glorious sunshine and you can see the hotel all set up with summer features - bathed in the light of dawn, tables and chairs in the garden, and our 6m x 8m marquee set up to provide extra cover from those summer showers.
Posted by gje at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
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July 06, 2007
An inspirational business talk from one of our prospective MPs
I've met Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones before; he's "the Black Farmer" with his Devonshire farm, and his famous brand of sauages. Oh - and he's our prospective Conservative MP too. From that meeting before - concerned with local public transport - I got a picture of an assured gentleman with an aristocratic background (or at least an aristocratic ambience). But, listening to him giving the keynote speech at HSBC's business event, I've some to realise there's even more to Wifred than I had dreamed.
Born in Jamaica, moved as a tiny child to Small Heath, Birmingham where his family of 11 lived in a 2 up, 2 down terrace ... he hated the place, but fell in love with gardening the allotment and set his heart on a farm. Leaving school at 16, joining the Army but then being thrown out for bolshiness wasn't the best ofcareer moves, but he found a niche in catering businesses before being inspired to break into the BBC. Wifred talks of tens of approaches, hundreds or rejections, and keeping on going until a lucky break and at intro to when he was at Pebble Mill got him a 3 month contract at the very bottom rung of the ladder, from which he moved up and up, end up as the main producer for some of the earlier celebrity chef shows.
"But I'm not going to get my farm that way" said Wilfred, and moved on from the BBC to the sales / marketing /branding of products such as Kettle Chips, Plymouth Gin and Lloyd Grossman sauces, and then on to his dream farm - sinking all the money he had earned and saved up into his farm, just at the time that others were pulling out of local argriculture. But he has/had a cunning plan; a product on which 350k R&D was invested, supply chains, delivery chains leaving him to concentrate on what he does best. Wilfred talks of tough times in early marketing, trying to convince the supermarkets to take his products, and of moving the public on from their well established buying habits to demand that ... first Asda then others ... stock "Black Farmer" sausages.
I've quoted background there as story - and there were nuggets all the way along too. About nurturing a business. About having it in "intensive care" for three years at the start. About having a team who believe in the business too. About not being afraid to be Mr Nasty (I half believe him on that!). But actually he has rather more too. He has a presence and an individual contact - from a warm handshake to a memory that makes you feel that you're the one he wants to meet, and that he's there for you. We chatted for a few minutes and it was good not only to catch up, but also to look forward. Looking forward - will he be elected to parliament? I suspect he will - not necessarily at the first try or even in the first constituency - but I suspect he will. And he's already got other aspirations for the step beyond - this will be one MP who won't be just another grey parry man representing some obscure shire seat.
Posted by gje at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)
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July 05, 2007
Where am I and how did I get here?
When you as "which directory am I in" with the pwd command, are you told the real directory you are in, or the one you cd'd into? You are normally tod the one you've cd'd to.
What's the difference? you may ask The difference is that you might want to find out where you really are on the file system (not with symbolic links) or how you got where you are (with symbolic links)
[trainee@daffodil webapps]$ pwd
/usr/local/tomcat/webapps
[trainee@daffodil webapps]$ pwd -P
/usr/local/jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9/webapps
[trainee@daffodil webapps]$ pwd -L
/usr/local/tomcat/webapps
[trainee@daffodil webapps]$
The -L option on pwd tells you the directory that you're in following links, and the -P option tells you where you really are. Note that these are the bash built in parameters; other shell's pwd commands may differ
Posted by gje at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)
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A day looking ahead for Well House Consultants
On Tuesday, Lisa and I attended a series of seminars at the Arc College in Trowbridge, laid on by our bankers (HSBC). There are times that we spend so much time working on the day-by-day business of running courses, booking hotel rooms, paying bills, and the rest that we don't take a step back and look at the bigger picture, nor look to changes in the law (especially tax and employment law), in what's available that might be of use, and common change of practise. So it was on that basis that we took a day that we really couldn't spare ... and spared it.
I won't go into the details of all the talks. Some included ideas which, great through they were, would not be for us. And a number of issues came up, time and again, relating to business premises where, basically, we're now decided, fixed, stable for 10 years. There's a lot happened in the last 2 years on that side, of course, and listening carefully I ended up convinced that most of the setups and advise we have taken have been correct for us, and we're with the right team.
Personally, I stand on BOTH sides of the floor at presentations. And there's an extra bonus from days such as HSBC's. A chance for me to study who others present and say "I can learn from that" or "let that be a warning to me NOT to ..."
Posted by gje at 06:11 PM | Comments (0)
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July 04, 2007
Data cabling (Cat 5e), Melksham, Wiltshire
Isn't it amazing how you look far and wide for a service ... only to find that what you're needing is available in the next street. And so it was with our network cabling. We met Matt Coyle at our speed networking event last Thursday, and asked him about our floor network points that haven't worked since they were installed. Well - he popped around this afternoon and they do now. And he's going to be able to sort out our cat 5 web cam problem too, where we have a cat 5 cable but no power to certain locations.
Matt's company is Purple Tiger Networks at www.purpletigernetworks.co.uk and I'm delighted to be able to give him this "plug".
Posted by gje at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
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July 03, 2007
What country are you in? How we find out on our web site
Our web site recognises the country that you're browsing from ... and that allows us to display our phone number in the format that you would have to dial to reach us, and to advise visitors to our public course pages from more distant countries that they're looking at a product for UK delivery before they go ahead and make a booking. And our Traffic Watch Page lets us see the worldwide spread of visitors to our site too.
The database for this is not a small one - there's no easy algorithm that we can use to take an IP address (or any other part of a request to our server) and convert it into a zone or country - the database as a whole is over 1 Mb in size. And it has to be updated from time to time. Rather than try to do the job ourselves, we use the excellent Maxmind database which you'll find at http://www.maxmind.com/app/geoip_country under their flavour of the GPL License. 'Under the license agreement, all advertising materials and documentation mentioning features or use of this database must display the following acknowledgment: "This product includes GeoLite data created by MaxMind, available from http://www.maxmind.com/"'.
The results are claimed to be 98% accurate, and the circumstantial evidence that we have world tend to confirm that. We update regularly (though not every month, as Maxmind do), and we allow our users through our accessibility page to switch their country. I'll never forget a call from Gothenburg in Sweden made to our UK office ... which was to enquire about booking a public course which ended up running in Dublin, Ireland ...
Posted by gje at 07:51 AM | Comments (0)
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July 02, 2007
Interviewing job candidates in Melksham
There's building work going on around Melksham, and our smaller conference room at Well House Manor is in regular use by one of the companies that will be moving there as an interview room .... business that we're very happy with, and ideally resourced for.
There has been a flow of faxes coming in for us to pass through to the interviewer in breaks between her interviews; yes, we're set up for that too - Resumes flowing in, I suspect, from all over. But I had to laugh at the title of a "spam" that arrived in the last few minutes asking Tired of Reading Too Many Resumes? in the subject line
Posted by gje at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
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July 01, 2007
Comparing bus stops
Between our home and hotel - in just that short distance of a few hudred yards - there are four bus stops. One doesn't have a shelter, two have shelters enclosed on two sides, and one has a shelter enclosed on three sided.
Guess which one has a new sign?
Yes - it's the one enclosed on 3 sides that has a bright new sign reminding the reader that it's against the law to smoke there.
We now boast no smoking signs at all entrances, and in my car; it's a private car, but I occasionally offer a lift to a customer. I've never had anyone light up in my car, nor openly smoke inside our offices or hotel, so the signage isn't really going to make any difference - we're solving a problem / issue that we have never had.
Our HQ at 404, The Spa - signage here for our business has to be limited due to listed building rules, so the largest external sign that we're open for customers, deliveries and business meetings is the statutory "no smoking" sign.
At Well House Manor, where the majority of our customer meetings and courses now take place, each entrance is correctly labelled
Posted by gje at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
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