"Please make immediate payment of $0.00"

Ahh yeah - great effort with the computers there guys….

Here I am, 31 years old, and I only just got around to really understanding the optimum way to manage my credit card. (At least I hope I understand it now).

Now for those of you that don’t like reading, I’ll give you the short version. Very simply - you MUST pay off the “Closing Balance” as close to, but before the “Due Date” ON THAT STATEMENT - and you pay no interest. Make no other payments. Do NOT pay the “Outstanding Balance”. That’s it, nothing else you need to know. Do that religiously, and you can’t do any better.

I mean, I don’t think I’m that dumb. I know about Mortgage Offset accounts, and leveraging the interest free period on the c/c to maximise the amount of cash in the offset.

I never really sat down and thought about maximising the interest free period. With interest calculated daily on most accounts, the more days you are using the bank’s money interest free, the more you save. BUT, and here is the gotcha, on most credit cards, if you are even one day late over the interest free period, you lose. They backdate the interest for the entire period. Just to make things worse, many (but not all), don’t give interest free on any further purchases until the closing balance has been paid. Note, this is NOT the “Minimum Payment”, OR the current “Outstanding Balance”. Ignore the minimum balance unless you are stretched that month - and it will cost you if you only pay the minimum, with all the interest free benefit wiped out.

Here is the first thing you need to know. A Credit Card is not a continuously rolling credit account. If you think of it this way (as I used to) you’ll never get straight in your head. 
Instead it’s a One Month window noted as “Statement Period” written on the statement. Everything you spend on the account in this Statement Period gets totalled up at the end of the period and put on the statement as the “Closing Balance”. You have “x” days  to pay that Closing Balance. This date is calculated for you and put on the statement as the “Due Date”. In my case it’s 55 days from the START of the Statement Period. This is why the interest free period is described as “Up To 55 Days Interest Free”. If you make a purchase on the first day of the statement period, you’ll get 55 days (until the Due Date) to pay it off without being charged interest. If you make it on the last day of the statement period (generally 30 days later), you’ll only only get 25 days until the Due Date, before you cop interest.

The Due Date is always before the close of the next statement period, this ensures that if it’s not paid off in full, whatever remains gets tacked onto the next Closing Balance.

The next Statement Period is INDEPENDENT and has nothing to do with the previous period. It accrues on it’s own, and has it’s own closing balance and due date. The only relationship is if you don’t pay off the previous closing balance, then things roll over and impact the interest free deal.

I find that the statement information is not available on my bank’s Internet banking site. I have to look at the paper statement to find the Statement Period, Closing Balance and Due Date.

For me, the confusion came around the current “Outstanding Balance”. Most people (and I) are concerned about keeping this under the Credit Limit to ensure we don’t get charged fees for exceeding the limit. For the purposes of maximising interest free periods, the Outstanding Balance is nothing more than a distraction. It is a combination of last months Closing Balance, and whatever you have spent this month. It is NOT what has to be paid off. If you instead concentrate on the Closing Balance, you’ll be FAR better off. The only thing the “Outstanding Balance” matters for, is ensuring you don’t exceed the credit limit and incur fees. Indeed I have found that by only paying off the Closing Balance, my card now has a much higher average amount outstanding than before, whilst still not incurring interest. This means the cash that would have been sitting on the card, is now sitting in my offset account for longer. It also means I am considering upgrading my limit to support this higher Outstanding Balance. The monthly spend is still the same, in and out. It’s just that I’m only paying off what I have to, when I have to, not the entire balance.

A complication comes around when the Closing Balance is only partially paid off before the Due Date. When this happens, interest is charged on the outstanding amount. The calculation is done on a First In, First Out basis, and I’m glad it’s computer doing the numbers. You lose in a number of ways in this case. Any charges that were not paid off (earliest charges paid off first), accrue the full interest from their “Date Processed” - this is often after the “Transaction Date”. Many cards also don’t give the future charges interest free status until the previous outstanding  balance has been paid off. (There is some debate on this point).
A further complication to the above is cash advances. The simplest answer on those is DON’T. They are not interest free. I only use Cash Advance overseas as I generally find the cash exchange rate with fees and Interest to still be better than “Money Exchange” facilities.
This is why they use computers to calculate this stuff out. 

The worst case of not paying off the Closing Balance in full is the “Low Interest” transfer type deals some card issuers offer. Say you transfer a variety of other cards onto a 0% interest deal. If you then proceed to use this card for other charges, under a First In, First Out basis, you won’t be paying off any of the new charges until the entire transferred balance is paid off. This makes any interest free period other than the transfer one, essentially ineffective. Low Interest transfer deals are valuable, only if you use them for just that, transfer. As soon as you use them as a normal credit card whilst there is a transfer amount outstanding, the bank starts winning back that interest from you.

Finally, Credit Card interest rates tend to approximately average double that of Home Loan interest rates in Australia. If you are using the card to assist your home loan repayments by increasing the average balance of your offset account, and you don’t pay the Closing Balance by the Due Date, you get charged interest at a much higher rate on the card. This means that the “effective savings” of the interest are wiped out for around twice as long as if the charges were straight on your offset account without the Credit Card. Result - one missed payment takes 2-3 months to re-coup the savings, just to get back to where you were.

All of which brings us right back to the simple statement - You MUST pay off the “Closing Balance” as close to, but before the “Due Date” ON THAT STATEMENT - and you pay no interest. Make no other payments. That’s it, nothing else you need to know. Do that religiously, and you can’t do any better.

The only circumstance where you should make a payment other than the Closing Balance, is when you need to put more charges on the card that month than the Credit Limit can cover. Exceeding your Credit Limit will result in fees being charged. In this case an additional early payment may be necessary to keep the card under the limit, but you are losing some of the interest free benefits. This may be offset by some of the insurance benefits and loyalty points programs some card issuers have. eg. Free Travel Insurance, Extended Warranties, Frequent Flyer Points etc.
Keep in mind, this early payment simply goes onto the statement as well, and will be accrued and calculated in. The rule of “Pay off the Closing Balance by the Due Date” still applies.

So what from here - go and grab a statement. Find the following key information from all the junk they print on there - it’s how you save money:

1. Statement Period (Open - Close)
2. Closing Balance
3. Due Date
4. Credit Limit

Ignore the distractions from all the other numbers.

You may want to consider moving your Statement Period so the Due Date falls somewhere just after you get your salary paid into your account. This makes it easier to manage payments - you get paid, and you pay off the card.

A note on Auto Payments. I have never done these - so can’t thoroughly comment. It would be worth checking what Auto Payment system your bank uses, and when it Auto Pays. If it pays the “Outstanding Balance” rather than the “Closing Balance”, or if it pays off the the amount much before the “Due Date” - you are losing out, and the bank makes more money.

Please keep in mind I am not a financial advisor, or financial professional. All the above is gleaned from what information I can get from my bank in Australia, your’s may be different. I have not been able to find many explanations on the Internet elsewhere for what should be common knowledge, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered to write it.

The Australian banks are definitely not in the business of explaining how their credit products work in simple terms, or how to optimise them for the customers benefit. If I have got any of the above wrong, or it could be done better, please comment and I’ll do my best to review and incorporate it.

NAB has a reasonable explanation of Credit Card interest.  
Compared to the unintelligible NAB banker speak version.

ANZ also has a unintelligible version.

Here are some additional tips I received when a professional banking friend reviewed the above:

1. If you pay via bpay - this payment takes 2 -3 days to reach the payee - so always process 3 business days before the payment is due - this goes with all bills you are paying this way - especially important if you are paying bills like rates and rego where you get a discount for being early.
2. Most banks offer a free service where they will set up a direct debit to the credit cards for either, entire balance (to avoid paying interest), minimum amount (to avoid late fees), set amount (to fit your budget). This payment will always be made on the due date - you just need to make sure there is always enough money in the offset / credit account to cover. This way you never have to worry about missing a payment - NB, it may take a month for the payment to be established so watch the first payment.
3. If paying via cheque the payment is not deemed as being made until the cheque has been cleared - normally 3 business days, so again pay 3 days prior to being due.
4. Low interest rate balance transfers - don’t use the card until the transferred balance is cleared - I recommend doing the balance transfer, then once cleared cancel the card. The less cards you have to manage the better for your budget.
5. If you are going to clear the credit card in full every month - look for maximum interest free days / lower annual fees, not the lowest interest rate (cause you wont be paying it) - which normally has the higher annual fee.
6. If you have a home loan - ask for the annual fee on the card to be waived, this can be done about 75% of the time.
7. NEVER set up direct debits from your credit card, eg pay TV, internet etc. A “stop” can not be put on a credit card to stop these payments, if you need them stopped. Even if credit card is closed, the payment will reopen the credit card (for 6 months after the closure). If you use a normal account, the payments can be stopped.

I’ve been trying to reduce the power of my Home Server and Media Centre. Since my Power Meter debacle, I am now re-testing all the equipment and getting some rude shocks.

One of the positives out of this is that my 1TB Western Digital  My Book Essential and 300GB Western Digital My Passport Essential both spin down and save power. On USB, this is a nice feature, as many of the generic external cages don’t spin the drive down.

The WD’s spin down on XP, Vista and Windows Home Server which is based on Server 2003. The timeout appears to be independent of the OS settings.

They support several power modes, and my current meter is not accurate enough to report which one they are in.

The WD 3/5″ Black is the 7200RPM desktop drive.
The WD 3.5″ Green is the 5400RPM drive generally in the MyBook
The WD 2.5″ Blue is the 5400RPM drive generally in the MyPassport

The other thing I noted was that my new power meter (which is not rated as accurate below 10w) indicated that whilst sleeping, the 3.5″ and it’s power adapter were drawing less than 1w. The power adapter was only just warm, much better than the usual little heat wasters. Well done WD for killing the parasitic standby power.

Overall, they get my vote as low power green storage.

The Green 3.5″ and Blue 2.5″ drives are also very quiet - both operating and seek. The 2.5″ is quieter, but with half the capacity, may not stack up overall.

And you can always decode the Morse Code on the outside!

ATA reported some accuracy concerns early on, and stopped selling them. The indication was this was only minor, and at low power settings.

I recently purchased the newer Solarinverters (SI) replacement from ATA and found some VERY large discrepancies between what I had seen before. Unsure as to which one to trust, I fired up the clamp meter to validate the results. The results shocked me.

I then confirmed the results against two other Electus meters of the same model.

The Electus meters are TOTAL AND UTTER JUNK. The numbers that come out have NOTHING to do with reality. The behaviour does not even appear to be linearly consistent.

Disappointingly Jaycar is still selling them.

The below pictured numbers are all with the SAME LOAD - a computer, UPS, Router, Printer etc. All numbers were repeated three times and fluctuations were minimal at this time.

Fluke meter validation Rig

1.1 Amps on Clamp Meter

0.37A on Electus Meter - kinda disagrees with the 1.1 on the clamp meter. This is where the majority of the error seems to lie.

1.16A on SI Meter

The voltages read the same

85W - 0.92 PF from Electus - again, the electus can’t seem to cope with PF giving readings that are often clearly incorrect. This will significantly affect the wattage calculation.

0.71 PF from SI - this is about what I would expect.

199W from SI

 
278VA from SI - matches the Fluke

Units from rear

Units from front

Now my clamp meter hasn’t been calibrated, but it is a Fluke. It’s only got one decimal place of precision. Using my other Fluke as an inline ammeter with mains voltages was too risky (exposed terminals) for me, so I didn’t do it, depsite the extra decimal place of precision.
I don’t have an independent Power Factor meter. I could be telling lies, this is the internet. The above numbers aren’t a small % error. They are out by over 100%. This is not a minor calibration issue, this is a device that clearly misleads Australian consumers.

I’ll stick with the new one and redo the testing round my house.

If you have a corporate wallpaper pushed to your desktop / laptop, chances are it’s being done with Windows Group Policy. It’s likely this is a PR rather than IT initiative, IT being there to service rather than brand the customer.

You can override this wallpaper with some local settings, although this *may* have impacts down the track where other settings are also blocked. This may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your perspective. It will definitely mean that IT won’t be happy as your PC is no longer standard and may not behave as they expect. This isn’t really a big stress, as with the advent of the Internet and web applications, no machine is the same as another anymore, despite opinions to the contrary. Your mileage may vary.

You need to have local administrative rights to make these changes. You may be this already, many laptop users are due to deficiencies in XP. Vista users are less likely to be local admin, as the newer design doesn’t require admin rights as frequently. To test if you are a local admin, try the below steps, if it denies you access, you need to escalate your privileges. Your friendly IT staff member may do this by adding your user account the the local pc administrators group, or alternately you can look at escalation of privilege attacks on the system. It is preferable not to be an administrator all the time, as the computer is MUCH more vulnerable to being attacked if you log on with Administrative access.

There is another way to gain administrative access. Every computer has a default Administrator account. Normally it’s named “Administrator”, but many companies to rename it. A nice utility from Peter Nordahl called NT Password Reset Disk will reset the password for the Administrator account, renamed or not. There is some risk with using this tool, but it still worked on NT/2K/XP/Vista including SP1 when I use it. You break your PC, you get to explain to IT  what happened.

Once you have admin access you need to open a Registry Editor

Check the account you are logged on with is a member of the group “Administrators” This is found under My Computer (Right Click) Manage Also check if the account “Administrator” has been renamed.
Start | Run | Regedt32
Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software \Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Right click “system” in the LHS pane and select “Permissions”
Click the “Advanced” Button
Untick “Include Inheritable Permissions from the Objects Parent” And select “Copy” existing permissions when prompted
Add “Full Control” to your user account Remove “Full Control” from “System” and “Administrators” - leave “Read”.
You can now set the wallpaper path in the registry to whatever wallpaper you prefer. The key “Wallpaper” contains the path.
WallpaperStyle settings are as follows	0 Centered 1 Tiled 2 Stretched as per MS

Presto - you now own your wallpaper again. You still can’t set it from the usual “Right Click” - select, but changing the path above isn’t too difficult.

The other options you have come from where the wallpaper file comes from.

If it’s stored locally on your PC, you can simply replace the file with something else with the same name.

If it’s on the network, if you boot up disconnected, you won’t get the wallpaper.

Happy playing.
And remember, don’t trust anything you read on the Internet, we are all evil hackers out to get you. Now can I have your c/c details please?

Here are ALL the steps I went through to getting the software install right. A Vista Media Center Build Document.

The changing of hardware, testing codecs, utilites, guides and apps had led to some long running config and stability issues that I couldn’t resolve. Application errors, crashes, codecs, screen sizes, resolutions and audio were all problematic.

After round one a while ago, I had managed to stabilise and expand the system somewhat. The stable hardware config now is

• Case - Zalman HD160 Case (IR, Display & Card Reader disabled)
• Cooling - Quiet Fans
• P/S - Antec Truepower 2 (120mm single fan)
• MB - Asus N4L-VM-DH (replaced 3 times under warranty)
• CPU - Core 2 Duo T2400 1.8
• RAM - 2GB Kingston
• HDD - WD WD5000AAKS
• DVD-ROM - Pioneer DVR-215
• Video Card - Gigabyte NVidea GeForce 8600 GT Silent
• TV Tuner Card - Hauppauge Nova Dual Digital T-500
• Bluetooth Keyboard - Logitech DiNovo Mini
• Remote - MS IR Remote Control
• Readyboost - Kingston Datatraveler 4GB USB Stick
• TV - Panasonic 50″ 720p Plasma - TH-50PX80A
• Amp - NAD T762 5.1 Channel Amp

I use the VGA cable to drive the plasma - other outputs have proven problematic in the past and I can’t be bothered trying again.

The Amp is driven off the Digital Out on the M/B - a coax copper digital connection.

This current hardware setup is MUCH more stable than the previous top of the line junk I tried.

1. Connect USB KB & Mouse (needed)
   BIOS - Change boot order - CD/HDD
   Boot to Vista DVD
   Long Delay - options page
   Select - English Australia
   Enter Serial Key
   Select - Do Not Upgrade
   Format HDD
   Create Account - Paul w/ pwd
   Set Timezone
   Approve auto-updates
   Network Location - Home
   Login
2. Windows Update - all updates
   Disable Sidebar Autostart & Exit
   Enable Readyboost on USB stick
   IE - set Google to default search provider
   IE - set startup to blank page
   IE - Install Flash Player
   Enable Auto logon
   Start | Run | Netplwiz
   Tick the box, and enter credentials
   Set Screen Saver - Blank screen - 3 mins (to protect plasma)
   Advanced Power Settings
   10 min display off
   HDD 10 min spin down
   Never Sleep (this MB won’t resume, your’s may)
   Bluetooth KB works - no drivers req’d
   Updates finished - reboot
   Disable Welcome screen
   Set resolution to TV screen native - 1360 x 768 (1366×768 native)
   Experience Index - 4.6 (CPU 4.7)
   Activate Windows
   Check Device Manager - all devices OK from Windows Update
   Start | Network | Click “Turn on Network Discovery” on top bar | Make Network Private
3. Install WHS Connector (if running Windows Home Server)
   Set Home Server to ignore AV errors
4. Vista Media Centre Setup
   Custom
   Setup Signal
   Accept 2 tuners
   Use Guide
   “your postcode”
   Guide Not Available
   Scan for Services
   Vista Media Centre - Audio
   Single RCA
   5.1
   Test OK
   Vista Media Centre - Display
   Flat Panel
   VGA
   Widescreen
   Keep display resolution
   Adjust
   Check Sizing and Centering OK
   Settings - “Start Windows Media Center when windows starts”
   Enable optimization at 4am
   Set storage to leave 60gb free (400GB)
   Stop recording 4 minutes after
5. Create restore point
6. Ice TV
   Login
   Setup Interactive Device
   Install ICE TV Software
   Follow install instructions
   Then do a manual setup and update guide
   Leave all settings default atm
7. Vista Media Centre - Setup Guide for VMC
   Download Guide
   Setup Channels
   Remove SD channels and doubles
   Keep HD7,HD9,HD10,HD ABC, HD SBS, ABC2
   Reset “Add Listings to channel” to get guide to update
8. Windows Update - Reboot
   Windows Update - Reboot (Req’d)
   Windows Update - Reboot (not stated)
   Windows Update - Reboot (SP1)
9. Install Lifextender
   Enable Automated Scanning - Midnight
   Untick “Display TV Show Info when uncommercializing”
   Set - Upon completion DELETE the original
10. Uninstall KB950126 (it’s a known bug)
    Reboot
    Windows Update - Check for Updates
    View Available Updates
    Right Click KB950126 - Select “Hide Update”
    Install other pending updates
11. Fix Lifeextender Auto-start
    Search - Task Scheduler
    Create Task - Lifextender
    “Run with highest privileges”
    Triggers - Begin Task - “At Logon”
    Actions - New - “C:\program files\yellow cup\lifextender\lifextender.exe”
    OK
    Delete Lifextender from Startup Folder on Start Menu
12. Enable Terminal Services Access (if running Vista Ultimate)
    Computer - Properties - Remote Access - Remote Desktop - allow connections

13. Enable Ripped DVD Gallery

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings
    ShowGallery -Play

    Change the Registry value data from Play to Gallery.

14. Install KLite Standard 4.1.7 - all settings default
15. Clean up Vista SP1 removal files - Start | Search | CMD | type “vsp1cln.exe”
    This will free up between 1 and 1.5GB of disk space

Presto - you should now have a system that can play most things, be reasonably stable and do all the things it should out of the box.

It’s only 98 real steps to set it up, not including all the “next, next, finish” buttons.

Wouldn’t it be great if this was how it came from Microsoft in Australia.

Depending on your hardware - your mileage may vary. This was FAR more stable than installing all the drivers from the vendor sites.

You may optionally want to

a)  Have Terminal Services Access without interrupting your TV (haven’t done this yet)

b) Improve your HDD performance, but also have increased risk of data corruption.

The impossible dream I am thinking of consists of seamless integration between:

• So lets look at the current state of play for these things.

Home Server

I reviewed home server here. It’s a great product that acts as a network store for your folders, and backs up all the PC’s in your house. It has a brilliant Disaster Recovery solution and one of the most innovative backup and storage solutions I have seen in a long time.

Unfortunately that’s all it is, and that means 40watts at idle 24/7 - 88KwHrs / qtr, and more if I make it work hard.

Media Centre

This thing’s purpose in life is to record TV, and play content. In Australia it does an average job of both. It’s another 50watts 24/7.

Trying to get a PC to work well in a lounge room is an exercise in frustration. Noise, power, keyboards, mice and windows hiccups are just not fun. Add in the TV compatibility problems many experience trying to get TV interfaces and resolutions correctly out of a PC.

It’s great when it works, but it’s definitely high maintenance.

As many people have said before me, what about storing the videos on Home Server, and getting it to do the recording too. That way they noisy PC can stay in the back room, and one PC can have an excuse for staying up chewing power 2/47, not two.

I don’t really stream my video, I watch it off a remote file share. A performance comparison of Streaming vs File Serving is here.

Extenders

I can’t claim to have one of these yet. The reviews are average, and every XBox 360 I hear about dies an early death.

These seem to be the obvious choice for the lounge room. They are quieter, more aesthetically pleasing, have native TV interfaces (PAL, Component etc), and an interface that never needs a mouse to drive it. They also play games, so many people end up wit one anyway.

The well known issues with power consumption on some of these come up, but at least it’s only when being watched, and it’s probably not more than the plasma TV anyway.

A chipped XBox with XBox Media Centre was my weapon of choice for years. It’s an aging solution now, and doesn’t have HiDef, but as a media player for over the network content, it beat Vista Media Centre hands down.

I can see this being the future of the lounge room.

The current problem being the limited support for what can / cannot be streamed to the current extenders, and how to connect the things.

Game Consoles

The Wii seems to excel here, as  a pure games console. The best comparison i reckon is here.

If you want all the video streaming, it’s XBox 360 or possibly, Playstation 3.

Digital Picture Frames

Nice toy, chews power all the time, unlike an old fashioned photos. Be good if they only displayed when they sensed movement.

The wireless versions I have seen seen only work off Flikr and other web services. None seem to be connecting to a local PC to show photo’s from. Great for using bandwidth.

Media Players

Everyone has an iPod, even me. I dont’ use iTunes at all, so it’s solid MP3’s. Unfortunately Apple in their wisdom designed the thing on ID3 tags, not on files / folders. If your tags aren’t perfect, you’ll have all sorts of fun navigating the thing.

I’m still looking for the cheap simple, web managed, wireless MP3 player I can plugin to my amp.

An old laptop or Asus eePC is topping the list at the moment.

Wireless

I ran wireless G for ages - just plain G, none of the tricky variants as my laptops built in is only basic G. It’s fine for web browsing and acceptable for file copying, but coverage and streaming movies never really worked.

I recently threw a bucket of cash a a Wireless N solution, sticking to a single vendor to keep the process smoother. Netgear is more common that Linksys in Australia.

Well the coverage is mildly better, and it is a bit faster, and that’s all. The problem is that the speed is still very variable, so even though the average is OK, for playing movies over the LAN - it all falls down.

Luckily my house lets me run a cable underneath to the lounge easily, so I have a solution, but it’s a disappointment.

I will have no such luck with running a cable for the spare room with the kids TV and their (might get for XMAS) 360. The consoles also don’t support Wireless N, so that’s more kit to buy.

So much for the wireless dream.

Looks like some others agree with me here and here

Broadband

I’m got lucky here, with my house being able to get Naked (Unbundled Local Loop) ADSL2+. I get about 7 Mbit download speeds. Being ULL means I don’t have to pay Telstra any money, and that makes me happy.

I don’t quite understand why a GB is cheaper on ADSL2+ than the same GB on ADSL, but I won’t complain seeing as I get the service.

This is one part of the equation that works well for me.

I do however have to run THREE devices pulling another 40Watts 24/7. A Wireless/Firewall/Router, an ADSL Modem and a VOIP adapter, all pulling their own power, each with their own old fashioned power brick radiating heat.
Where oh were is the all in one Modem/Router/Wireless N/VOIP adapter that only pulls 5 watts.

VOIP vs VOIP vs VOIP

“Skype” vs “VOIP from my ISP” vs “Messenger”

And never shall any of the above meet. Good luck all ye who enter here.

Then we move onto Bluetooth headsets, Wireless Handsets, GSM Picocells, and Cordless phones just for laughs.

Desktop PC’s

These integrate acceptably into the home network. My biggest hurdles here are

• What version of Vista
• Remote Desktop
• Local User logons
• Authentication and Passwords for file / printer sharing

I’m used to domain authentication, and sharing stuff around a home network isn’t quite as simple as I would have thought. More work to be done in this space.

It is still common to email a file via their internet email address, that is in the same house as you! That tells me point to point file transfer is still way too hard.

Hmm - maybe device authentication is a better idea in this space than traditional user authentication.

Wireless Printers

I have a HP wireless (802.11g) All In One unit. It works well enough except for one critical problem. It gets it’s IP Address via DHCP from the Router. If I don’t set a reservation, this changes sometimes due to the alignment of Venus and Mars. The software fails badly at finding it when it’s IP address changes.

Tip for Wireless device designers, home IP addresses are very dynamic, plan on your drivers having to work with that.

A reservation fixes the problem - until the next firmware upgrade.

Cloud Services

And finally we have the latest set of toys, the one’s the world’s been saying will happen for years. Well it’s not there yet, even with ADSL2+, but I agree, it’s coming.

I do like some of the services and I’m using more and more over time.

• Google Docs is interesting for sharing stuff with my wife.
• Windows Live Mesh is a new toy - no comment yet
• Newsgator / FeedDemon
• GMail w/ Outlook IMAP (testing - it’s a hassle)
• Domain hosted with Bluehost
• Wordpress for this

I tried online backup of 20Gb of data, and it does work, but it’s nowhere near as practical as Home Server for me. For small quantities of data it would be very good.

The whole area is changing, and local sync options are making it more interesting. Google gears enables some of this functionality and is worth looking for.

Security and privacy are significant concerns. Google can inform you about google here.

A single authentication solution like OpenID starts to make all of this much easier.

Summary

Well the seamless integration of all this stuff is still a long way off. The problems are solvable, but the maintenance is high.

All I want is devices that chew no power, work together seamlessly, is available anywhere in the world and takes no effort from me. It’s not too much to ask for is it?

Watch this space.

Jesper had a similar problem last week.

Creating an empty DNS zone with the same name as your internal zone can lead too all sorts of frustration - especially with the multiple locations in AD that it can end up in. You’ll find yourself knee-deep in ADSI Edit faster than you would ever want to be.

I love DNS, but it’s gotta be right, and it’s easy to get wrong.

This is of course on top of what would have to the  slowest proximity readers on the planet, displays that are impossible to read, an arcane array of “beep” codes, and an “Auto Top Up” function - that doesn’t.

Great system guys, matches your train network perfectly.

The tests were all done on the first layer of the drum to give maximum tension. This also places additional load on the mount due to the increased height adding leverage.

Test 1 - Drag Car on Dirt (Wheels Locked)- Passed

Test 2 - Drag Car on Dirt Up Hill (Wheels Locked) - Passed

Test 3 - Drag Car on Bitumen (Wheels Locked) - Passed

Test 4 - Drag 2 Cars Uphill on Dirt (Wheels Locked) - Rope Failed

I believe the rope failed due to 3 factors

1. The Technora fibre is wearing noticeably more than the Amsteel Blue. I have read that the high temp materials are less abrasion resistant.
2. The fairlead internal radius is too sharp compared to the external radius. The radius should be 4x the diameter of the rope.
3. The fairlead sits approx 3/4 up the height of the winch, giving a fair bend to the rope as it goes over the fairlead and down the bottom of the drum. Rope rated at 13,700lb loses strength when bent. The tighter the radius, the greater the strength loss. The numbers are hard, as it depends on the diameter or the rope, and it’s construction. 12 Strand is a good construction for bending.

I am surprised a 9500lb winch can break a 13,700lb rope.

At no point did the mount appear to bend excessively, or sustain any visible damage. There was NO permanent twist.

The fairlead mount also suffered no damage, and the rope was spliced back together easily.

I was surprised at the amount of spring in the rope, you can see it coiled up under the tree where it ended up.

I wanted to keep the weight down, so decided a 9500lb was smaller and lighter than a 12,000lb. If I needed more pulling power, I would use a pulley block.

After reading the SA 4WD Winch Review, and getting a good deal, I bought a 9500lb Ironman Winch for $625 w/ 3yrs warranty. They are claimed to be waterproof and come with what I needed. I would have preferred a Premier winch due to the brake not being in the drum making it more suited to synthetic rope, but it was out of my price range. I would really have preferred a hydraulic Milemarker, but that was really really out of my price range, especially when I factored in questions around power steering pump flow rates.

After using steel cable and hating it, synthetic winch rope was a requirement. I figured 100ft (28M) of 5/16″ (8mm) rated at 13,700LB breaking strain would do. Less rope on the drum keeps the winch closer to it’s rated pulling force. I specifically bought their “Hybrid” line, where the first 25ft is a Technora based rope, and the rest is Amsteel Blue. The Technora is more temperature stable for use on winches with a brake inside the drum. I bought mine from www.cseoffroad.com, along with the alloy fairlead, rope protector and safety thimble. The alloy fairlead was a free bonus at the time. I also grabbed 100ft (28M) of 3/8″ (10mm) Amsteel Blue winch extension rated at 19,600lb breaking strain. The separate extension allows the flexibility of simply extending the pull, connecting two different points, putting a winch block in between the two etc. You need the thicker rope size if you are going to use a winch block, as it will double the pulling force - 9500×2 = 19,000lb.

The next item was a mount. Other mounts I have seen use 6mm steel plate in various arrangements. I settled for the thickest and strongest alloy channel I could get - 8.4mm x 6.8mm tempered alloy. It doesn’t have a rated “strength” in this configuration, especially after I chopped it up to get the winch to fit. I can say that in a pull to stall test, the rope snapped before the winch stalled, and the mount, while having a slight twist, suffered no permanent deformation. The winch is in an ideal position, directly between the chassis rails, very low, and as far back as possible. The mount acts to protect the radiator from sticks etc.

The fairlead I mounted into the bullbar with 20x heavy gauge rivets. Whilst I am not that confident as to their strength, in shear the steel pins combined with the tight fit should be very strong. At a 45deg pull they will be in both tension and shear, a less desirable situation. The alloy bar mounts are particularly weak in a sideways direction, so I think I’ll be avoiding heavy angled pulls. The fairlead needed to have it’s inside edge rounded a lot, as the winch sits quite low in relation to the bar.

Finally it was just a matter of the control box hidden inside the bar, the wiring and lockout switches. I recommend the lockout switches be waterproofed underneath with silicon, and rubber caps fitted (I used rubber “feet”). Water pulls inside them and the copper contacts stop working.The winch is wired with a switch to each AGM battery, letting me use either one, or both.

By dropping the steel cable and roller fairlead, using an alloy mount, not using a 12,000lb winch and keeping the alloy bar I have kept nearly 75KG off the front of the car. Just as importantly the weight is as low and far back as possible, something most winch bars don’t do. Whilst I accept it’s not as strong as a steel winch bar, it has passed every test I can throw at it so far.

Finally - it’s a whole lot cheaper than driving into ARB, and with Mickey T MTZ’s, twin Air Lockers and some lift, hopefully I won’t need to winch too often (yeah right).

The heaviest aluminium alloy channel I could find. It is also tempered (or so the guy said). 8.4mm base, 6.8mm walls.
Trimmed to fit winch and chassis rails with lower bull-bar mounts. I should have rounded the corners more to stop fatigue.
Winch fits nice and snug.
Alloy hawse fairlead mounted in the factory bar. Yeah I know, I know. If it snaps the rivets then I’ll do something sttronger. The alloy is 6mm checker-plate. The bar is not that strong, nor are the bar mounts.
Terminating the high temp Technora fibre.
Had to grind the allen key to fit the link on the rope.
All spooled up. Rope protector is the black bit. I have a strong plastic / rubber  flap that covers this gap keeping grass and mud out.
Pic when fitted. Yes, I suspect it may snag something one day.
The lockout switches with waterproof covers. They don’t like water in them, and then don’t work.
Internals of the waterproof control box. It’s zip-tied inside the bullbar.

With the release of Power Pack 1 (PP1), and support for external USB backups, I decided to take another look. I have not looked back.

OK - at it’s simplest WHS does three things

1. It backs up all your home PC’s using what has to be one of the most innovative and useful backup solutions I have ever seen.
2. It’s a file server
3. It’s a Terminal Services & Web Gateway - you can get access to your desktop PC’s and Files from the Web

WHS is managed by a really easy to use interface - it’s not a web interface, it’s actually a Terminal Services Published App. Anyone with a modicum of IT knowledge can drive this thing.

The hardware can be any old PC with more than 512MB of RAM. I run 4GB so I can use VMWare are well for testing. It will need a few HDD’s, either internal or external, USB, PATA, SATA, eSata, it doesn’t matter. They can be any size and speed, it will sort out the storage. Ideally there are four HDD’s, one for Boot / Temp, two for storage with duplication between them, and an external USB/eSATA for backup. I’m using a WD 1TB Mybook Essential for backup as unlike many enclosures, it will spin down saving power, and has no fans making noise. I’m running 1 x 80Gb, 4 x 500Gb, 1 x 1TB USB.

Install

Installing and setting up the WHS is pretty simple. I had one weird error that caused it to fail due to it not liking the PATA setup on my M/B. Changing the DVD to it’s own controller solved that.

There is one strange requirement, that is the server must be plugged into an Ethernet interface, not wireless. It’s something to do with the compression algorithm and streaming of the backups. It’s documented, but I haven’t found the solid reason yet. The clients can be wireless, but not the server.

Next step is to configure any storage. Plenty of guides on that around. The very interesting technical brief / whitepaper on WHS Storage is here. It must be noted that WHS does NOT support RAID. You can run hardware RAID, but it’s not recommended. Please read the whitepaper to gain a better understanding. Basically any of the file shares can have “duplication” enabled. Initially to me this sounded like a mirror (RAID1), and as I was running RAID5, I wasn’t particularly interested. After reading the whitepaper, it is fundamentally different. Not better or worse, just different. I would kinda still prefer RAID5 - it’s more efficient, and protects the whole system, not just the file stores, but this is much easier to expand and configure. I’m neutral on this feature vs RAID5, but would be very happy to give it to a non IT person to run. I think that’s the main point, anyone could drive this and have their data protected. It does NOT protect the WHS OS in any way. It does not duplicate the PC Backups unless you hack it.

Once the server is setup and configured with storage you install the WHS connector on each PC in your house. There is a tray icon that will run on each PC in your house - it alerts you to any problems, provides shortcuts to the file shares, manages backups and allows you to manage the WHS. It makes it much easier to trust the status of the server than having to remember and check Event Logs every so often.

Backups

The backup function is split into two components. PC backup and File Server backup. The technical brief for the PC Backup is here

PC Backups

The PC backup runs once a day, waking the computers from sleep, and putting them back to sleep when complete. The backups are particularly clever, tracking each NTFS sector backed up. If any sectors are the same, either across backups of the same machine, or between machines, the sector is only stored once. This is all transparent to the user. The space saving is dramatic. My three computers at home are using 168GB backup space, and that is with plenty of data on each, and nightly backups for a month. The backups are cleaned up to manage space on a schedule you can define.

Restoring of PC Backup’s can be done in one of two ways. You can browse the backups to restore individual files, or you restore the whole machine like an image. The restore is particularly clever. You boot the PC from a generic “Restore CD” that comes with WHS. All the drivers for that PC are sitting in a folder on the WHS ready to go - it has automatically found them on the PC when it was backed up and prepared them for this purpose. They go onto a USB thumb drive. With the drivers available, the PC can get onto the local network, connect to the server and retrieve the backup. It will put all the files back, OS and all - presto - rebuilt client PC from backup. That is much easier than the usual “restore the OS first”. Unlike most Bare Metal or Image restores, there is no need to keep regular updated images, meaning less maintenance and less space consumed. It’s very elegant really.

Server Backups

The server backup can backup any of the file shares (not the Server OS or the PC backups) to any HDD in the “Backup Storage” list. The server backup must be triggered manually, it cannot be scheduled or automated (A glaring oversight). It uses NTFS Hard Links to make sure that any file is only stored once, even though it may appear to be copied up each time. This saves huge amounts of space, and can be read on any machine. Again - this is transparent to the user. The external backups must be cleaned up manually when you run out of space. It would be ideal in future versions if these external backups could be duplicated somehow, to allow for an offsite copy. The current solution would be to perform the backup twice. This is not a significant overhead, as the backup only copies any changed data using a very efficient algorithm.

Storage / Shares

The other function for a WHS box by default is as a local file server. It is very easy for anyone to configure this, and can be controlled with easy to manage user accounts and permissions.
The interesting feature in this area is “Duplication”. Each share can optionally have “Duplication” enabled. This will then have the server transparently copy each file to a separate drive. The process is described in the storage whitepaper. This is all hidden from the user by using NTFS links and other NTFS trickery. The advantage is that in the event of a disaster of some kind, the drives are fully readable on any machine. It also is dynamic enough that the drives can be any type  and size, it will share the data round and balance the storage as required.

Web Gateway

I haven’t played much in this area yet - I’ll update when I do. It uses UPNP to publish a site to the internet through your router. The domain homeserver.com lets you register a free subdomain to get to your data. You can access your files from anywhere. There is a Terminal Services Gateway function to allow remote access to your home PC’s - I haven’t investigated this yet. It probably depends on your desktop OS version, user account configuration and if the computer is asleep.

Add In’s

There are a reasonable and expanding number of AddIns that can be installed. These offer increased functionality through the WHS interface.

Notes

It is worth checking the Power Settings on the WHS, as mine was set not to spin the drives down. This wastes a lot of power and will reduce their life. I tend to set mine to 5 minute spin down, as this is longer than any streaming period. The machine isn’t user interactive - so spin up time is not a concern.

Non-WHS Apps

WHS is actually Windows Server 2003 (possibly with some SBS stuff - I have noted). It will run nearly anything W2K3 Svr will. BUT, you need to be particularly careful with your drive management. Use of Disk Manager can kill the special WHS stores. Whatever apps you install needs some careful thought as to where the data will be stored.

Conclusion

I’m very impressed with the data storage and backup solution used in WHS. It can be driven by anyone with a modicum of computer experience and meets it’s goals very well. It is more limited than a full W2K3 server, but offers some brilliant functions that are difficult to find elsewhere. It’s simplicity is wonderful, and with some care, offers a wonderful solution.

The Future

What should have been included that wasn’t? Hmm, well. I have a list, as do many others on the Connect forum. If I had to narrow it down it would be.

1. WHS + Media Centre in one - so you can just run extenders around your house.
2. Scheduled External Server Backups
3. OS Backups
4. A 2W Atom CPU / MB & 95% efficient CPU - drop the consumption from the 30w idle of my Home Server
5. Better power options. It would be good to have the box sleep for much of the day, waking only to do what was needed when we were home.

Good Resources

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/

I had a few ideas I wanted to stick to, as well as keeping it within reason from council approval. You’ll have to read up on your own council approvals for greywater. I’m basing mine on the “I won’t tell them and they won’t care” legal principle.

The main principles I wanted were

1. No storage - stored greywater will build up bacteria and needs space. Althogh up to 24hrs is acceptable, no storage for me.
2. Shower / Bath / Sink / Laundry only. My kitchen water goes down the normal wastewater system, meaning no grease traps to worry about.
3. Minimal Maintanance - small holes clog up, it had to be robust. Greywater contains hairs, soaps, grease, dirt and who knows what else that falls off my kids.
4. Subsurface - I wanted the water delivered under the mulch and into the soil
5. Cheap, very cheap. That means no pumps or commercial kits.

These are the trees I wanted to water. Greywater would be perfect irrigation for my 16 tree orchard. My sloping block made this much easier, although it would work on a flat block. Uphill - forget it.
This nasty looking contraption guarantees things work smoothly. It’s an overflow pipe and diverter valve. Details below.
The diversion valve. When I have too much rain, I turn the valve, and greywater goes back to the council. I used 25mm corrugated greywater pipe to get to the trees.
Overflow pipe - if the greywater can’t escape fast enough  - say when the kids let the water out of the bath whilst I am having a shower - it will fill1.5m of  vertical pipe on the right, then overflow into the kitchen drain pipe on the left. The air-valve is to stop airlock / siphon issues.
The first tree also gets a 1.3m overflow pipe. If there is a blockage lower, or too much flow, it simply comes out here. This is below the level of the house. Make sure yours is too.
1″ (25mm) poly and 1″ poly pipe Y piece.I use the cheapest low density irrigation poly I could get. Hose clamps were not needed.
1″ poly, 1″poly T, and an end stop using a cable tie.
The magic ingredient. The 1″ poly fits perfectly into these water spikes. They are $0.99 from Bunnings and designed for use with softdrink bottles. They deliver a perfect amount of water.
A better shot of the holes. I tried enlarging the holes initally - bad move. The factory size is perfect. Larger holes stop downstream spikes getting water.

The only thing that has to be done is the spike washed out / replaced every 6 months approx. No filters, no smell, no pumps, no cleaning, no worries. The ends of the pipe don’t appear to collect rubbish, and the system is pretty foolproof and self regulating. It’s all easy parts that should last long term, and be dirt cheap to replace.

I had the luxury of a high set house and a sloping block, giving me plenty of fall and water flow. Your mileage may vary. It gives me cheap year round irrigation. Long showers are not wasteful - they are a benefit.

Longer term I would like to find / make a sock filter to go inline with a disposable sock - but I haven’t found one yet.

It was a combination of these and other unpredicted factors that resulted in a major landslip devastating 2km of shoreline, road, powerlines and water pipes. In hindsight it seemed obvious. When the road you drive on every day has lifted over a metre in the air in the last 2 months. When there are cracks in the ground you could hide a person in. When the water pipe is under repair on a weekly basis from being torn apart, it gives a few clues. It was the consensus opinion however that this consistent creeping would not fail catastrophically.

The consensus opinion was wrong.

A range of monitoring equipment had been installed across the unstable area to alert to any significant changes. Nearby stockpiles of ore were reduced in height, and alerts were given to the over 1000 staff who drove across the area at least twice each day.

At approximately 1:00am in the morning the alarms went off. The crews working on repairing the again ruptured pipeline 1.5m underground were evacuated. Equipment was left where it stood.  Nothing happened. This had occurred before, and was believed to be another false alert. One of the geotechnical staff proceeded in to investigate the area and determine if the alerts were genuine.

They were.

At 2:30am 2KM of caldera slipped some 200m sideways. It doesn’t sound like much, the pictures and evidence on the ground showed otherwise. The small tsunami generated would certainly have some impact on the upcoming day.

My phone went off around 3am, partially waking me. Loud knocking on my door five minutes later certainly got my attention. A very rushed explanation and the the It & Comms teams were getting out of bed in a similar fashion. Communications would be critical to deal with the crisis. As would be expected, information was confused, contradictory and garbled. Luckily a crisis committee had been formed to deal with unexpected major events and the situation was managed as well as organized chaos can be.

Many components had to be stabilised. Powerlines had been cut, throwing the camp and town onto backup generator power. This was insufficient to run all services and had not been fully tested in years. Water pipes had been destroyed, shutting down the process plant near the mine indefinitely. Communications were critical to managing the disaster, and at significant risk due to power loss. My boss was off site on leave, giving me two roles to run between. Stabilizing this situation took most of the morning. 

It eventually came down to 2 people confirmed missing. The geotechnician investigating the area when it slipped, and a member of a maintenance crew on one of the work-boats, a small tug - Lucinda.

I had launched my 17ft fibreglass boat early that morning to start ferrying equipment with my staff between the plant site and the camp. With the road destroyed the only alternate was a rough and slow three hour drive around the back of the island. Now the initial communications were stabilised, I assisted with the search for Lucinda. Back on land the search for the missing Geotech and his vehicle was already underway. My normal diving buddy was assisting there in a nightmare scene of unstable soil, tangled trees, wires and boiling mud.

Lucinda, a 45ft steel workboat or tug,  had been moored about 3.5km(2nm) from the slip area. The amount of water displaced had formed a small tsunami and flipped her, most likely due to the manner in which she was moored. Various conflicting reports gave descriptions of where she went, and who was on her. It was 2:30am in the morning with no work crews directly on scene, so the confusion was understandable.

The search was being conducted with the environment department catamaran and it’s advanced side scan sonar, combined with dragging an anchor trying to catch something on the boat, so far, without success. Their sonar results so far had been confused.

I had a Navman Fish Finder, normally of marginal use in the frequently 3000m deep water around Lihir. Today it would be just fine. The harbour area tends between 10 and 40 metres, and all indications put her in the middle of the workboat maintenance bay. There was obvious oil or diesel on the muddy churned water, not surprising considering what had been washed from shore, but it did seem to concentrate in one area. Passing over this area at 4 knts, the Navman showed a lump on the bottom in one spot. Crossing the other way a few times showed it was a definite bottom feature in a single point - X marks the spot. I dropped anchor there. Calming the surface by stopping the other boats allowed us to see a steady stream of diesel floating to the surface about 10m from where I was moored - Bingo. Score one for the fish-finder.

Now to find some divers.

We knew that anyone on board would have drowned by now, but we needed to ascertain where the missing were. This would determine if further searches in other areas where necessary. By this stage it had been communicated that there two people on the boat when it flipped. One got out, one was missing. Their location on the boat was uncertain and variously reported and on deck, in the engine room working, in the wheelhouse, and below deck. Basically anywhere. We later found out that in typical PNG style the truth was somewhat different. These two people had decided to disappear from working nightshift and take a nap, the nearby boat offering an easy location. It would prove to be a deadly decision.

The chief electrical guy, Greg was the only one as crazy as myself to attempt a wreck dive in such poor visibility water. Barry, one of our to be support crew had done recovery work before, but approaching 70 and a heavy smoker, was not really up to it anymore. We each went and retrieved our own gear, not wanting the additional problems with unfamiliar and untested equipment in unknown conditions. A dozen tanks, dive lights, lines, compass and my spearfishing float were also on the list.

The plan on the surface was for the two of us to stay within sight but some 10m apart and plot a an initial square, and then swim a grid until we found her. No plan lasts the first 5 minutes of battle.

Hitting the water we steadily dropped to 15m, finding the visibility reducing from 2m to 0.5m as we went, before opening up to 2-3m at the bottom. The floor was mud, rubbish and scraps of vegetation washed in from the shore and slip with a steady fall away from shore. Splitting up would get us both lost, and Greg had the compass. I latched onto his tank and we headed east. 100 kicks. Nothing. Next south and uphill toward shore. 100 kicks. Nothing but intermittent rubbish and vegetation. Water about 8m deep. East - 50 Kicks, and something a little different. There was a small tree, still green and deep drag marks. Something had headed down slope here, probably more of the tree, but worth investigating. The marks were only about 100 - 200mm deep, but stood out in the smooth mud and fresh surface silt. The floor steadily dropped from 8m to 22m metres before a dark shape suddenly appeared in front of my face. At first I thought it was a scrap tyre, until I realized it was one of the fenders around Lucinda - Bingo.

I tied off the float so we could easily locate her again and we started to check her out. She was sitting on about a 30deg angle in 25m of water at the keel. The slope was only about 5deg, so she was buried to the rail on the port side, bow facing east. Bubbles were still trickling out of some areas, along with small streams of black engine oil, hydraulic fluid and diesel. The wheelhouse was the first place to check.

It was a sliding door facing toward the surface we approached first. I could see a yellow shape jammed against the window. I don’t remember being more freaked out than when I went to open that door. Thinking better of opening it straight up and getting a face full of things I didn’t want to think about, or wake up to for years to come, I signaled to Greg to pull the door open from the rear of it’s tracks. I would catch whatever floated out. Ready to go, he pulled.

The bright yellow lifejacket floated emptily to the surface, followed closely by a red fire extinguisher. As my pulse slowed I saw the wheelhouse was empty.  Checking gauges for the amount of air gulped in the last minute, it was time to head up. I think Greg agreed.

We surfaced in a stinking thin layer of diesel on the surface, right beside the enviro cat. Barry was on the duckboard ready to help us with our gear, lit cigarette in hand. “Diesel won’t burn” he said…

The enviro guys had used another anchor to manoeuvre closer to the buoy and lifejacket that had popped up. At least we didn’t have far to swim.

A quick swap of tanks and equipment, check of computers for time etc and we were back in the water.  It was only a quick dive to check out the externals and peer into all the hatchways. Check for the obvious. We found no bodies in any of the sections we could see into. The other wheelhouse door was smashed inwards from the water when she flipped and sank. That was the only obvious damage. Two pairs of boots in the wheelhouse seemed a little ominous.  Bottom time was less than 10 minutes.

The next dive would be the interesting one, penetrating the machinery spaces and other below deck areas. On the surface we rigged up a single reg onto a tank with some weights to make it negatively buoyant. Greg and I took that down with us to do the penetration. We had earlier agreed that as I was younger and stupider I would go inside and he would watch from the entrance in case there were any problems. It be nice to have someone close to observe my entanglement and death. Lines would be more of a hindrance than a help with all the floating debris in the rooms, although with every kick disturbing silt, visibility would be poor to nil.

The entrance to the engine spaces was too small to enter with a tank and BC. This was why we had the extra tank. I dropped it through the hatch, hung onto the reg, ditched my BC and gear with Greg and swam in after the single tank. Dive light in one hand, tank in the other, and heart in mouth beating 10,000 times a minute I started the search.

Every movie I had ever seen involving drowned bodies was flashing through my head as I weaved the narrow gaps between pipes and floating cables. There were a large number of small spaces where a body could have been forced by in-rushing water and they all had to be checked in detail. The missing person was PNG national with typically dark skin, making the search in the poor visibility even more challenging.

After a slow and thorough lap around the huge engine that filled most of the space, I found nothing.  Checking the steerage areas to the rear was the same. Last was the storage area under the wheelhouse. Again a narrow hatch was the only access, but here my penetration was limited by floating junk and containers. Upside down half through the hatch I could see the room was clear. Nothing. There was no-one left on the boat. All the movement had by now stirred up the silt to drop visibility to zero, a few times I couldn’t see my gauges in front of my mask. It was time to leave and let things settle.

The final dive of the day was with a bunch of rags. We jammed them hard into every vent hole leaking oil or diesel. The last thing we needed was 5000L of diesel spreading out over the bay. The leaks we saw previously were all from various minor vents as water displaced oil, so plugging the holes was effective with just some cloth.

It took another two months before Lucinda was re-floated. Last I saw she was still sitting on a stand beside the dock as they tried to sort out insurance. We later found as things cleared that the person that escaped alive was sleeping in the downstairs area below the wheelhouse. He crawled along the upside down ceiling and out the hatch through the wheelhouse to escape. His missing wontok was supposed to be sleeping in the wheelhouse, we assume he was washed out. His body was never found.

The process plant was out of operation for nearly three months. We commuted by daily by boat to work for a further 2 or 3 months after that. Extra emergency gensets were bought in to run the town until the powerlines could be restored, power was scarce in the meantime. We had to use helicopters to supply the primary communications tower with fuel for three months.

The two missing people were never found.

And this is why we have to wean business off Excel.

Just like programming - it’s all mistakes mistakes mistakes.

I like to be able to resize stuff easily and quickly for a number of uses. It’s one of the main reasons I use Live Writer for this site - it’s quick and easy to to the image management.

Luckily a free replacement with all the simple “Right Click - Resize” features turned up - VSO Image Resizer. And it’s free for personal use.

No spyware, no crap running in the taskbar, no background services. It runs the way an app should - right click - “just do it”

Highly recommended.

They are a scam, it’s so well documented I can’t even be bothered linking the h