Yes I know it’s now the 2nd December so this is a day late, but here’s a list of the online advent calendars I’ve seen so far (and I’ll probably keep adding to it!)

24 Ways - Web development tutorial every day till Christmas

DTS Advent Devotionals - A devotional each day on the names of Jesus

Adfont Calendar - A free webfont every day in advent

Prezzo - A competition to win vouchers each day

Inky Advent - An inky picture each day by Johanna Basford

Advent verses - My own one with the advent verses I’ve put in the girls advent calendar

Christmas is Coming - A christmas themed illustration every day

Yo Illo Illustrator’s Advent Calendar - An illustration each day from the group of London Illustrators (found via @VeerUpdate)

What I was doing…

Fixing a bug in some SQL

You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me. (Genesis 31:6-7)

In the many years that Jacob had worked for Laban, he had a tough time. First he agreed to work for 7 years so that he could marry Rachel and then Laban swapped his daughters so that he ended up marrying Leah instead, then he had to work a further 7 years to marry Rachel. Laban consistently deceived Jacob, and attempted to cause him harm by changing his mind and their agreements so many times, but as he did, God protected Jacob from coming to harm. Just before these verses we see God at work in the situation in that which ever marked cattle Laban said Jacob could have, God caused to prosper.

The vodafone website doesn’t seem to have any record of my data usage and is confused about how much I’m allowed (see screenshot below), so when I received a text from them saying I was near my limit (with no detail as to how close, just the price for going over) I decided to get in touch with them about it.

Here’s the full transcript from my online chat with them, with just my personal details removed:

Ahmed: Hello, you're chatting with Ahmed, one of Vodafone's online customer service specialists.  May I take your full name and mobile number please?

You: Hi it’s Ricky Moorhouse and the number is

Ahmed: Hi Ricky

Ahmed: How are you today ?

You: Good thanks.

You: I don’t seem to be able to check how much of my allowances I’ve used on my online Account on the vodafone website

You: and I just got a text saying I’m nearing my data limit so I wanted to get it sorted out so that I can see
better how much I’m using

You: Can you see what is causing this?

Ahmed: I will check now

Ahmed: Thank you for the information. Could you also please provide me with the first line of your address and post code?

Ahmed: and your date of birth please ?

You:

You:

Ahmed: Brilliant

Ahmed: I found here that up to yesterday

Ahmed: You used only 183MB

Ahmed: Not to worry

Ahmed: Your allowance is 250MB

You: ah ok

You: any idea why that doesn’t show in my account online?

Ahmed: this what am working on now

You: ok thank you

Ahmed: Can you try to check that tab which is called unbilled usages

You: ok..just trying to get there it seems slow at the moment

You: so I’m on the My Bills page and there’s the block saying what I’ve used since the last bill - is it the link “See your usage since your last bill” ?

You: ah then there is an unbilled usage tab

You: ok - that tells me how many minutes are used and remaining but no mention of data

Ahmed: ok

Ahmed: Is it showing on any other tab ?

You: for the previous bills it shows in the summary, but nothing for the unbilled/current period

Ahmed: ok, Do you have your mobile handy ?

You: yes

Ahmed: Great dial 44555

Ahmed: It is free

Ahmed: and tell me what you will have ?

You: options for inclusive minutes or account balance

Ahmed: that is what it says on the screen ?

You: no it was a voice menu

You: I went for balance and just got a text

Ahmed: ok check account balance

Ahmed: Super

You: that has the data usage in as you told me

Ahmed: What doe the text says ?

Ahmed: Great

Ahmed: Does that clarify the situation for you?

You: It gives me a way of getting the information so that’s good - I was hoping to be able to use the website or the iPhone app - but if they’re not going to work at least I can get the information

Ahmed: Am quite sure there is something on the web site keep looking

Ahmed: am sure you will find it

Ahmed: Is there anything else I can do for you today?

You: I will do, I have been looking every couple of weeks since signing up to vodafone but I could still discover it

Ahmed: Keep checking

You: ok

Ahmed: I hope you find it

Ahmed: Is there anything else I can do for you today?

You: Thank you

Update 3rd Nov 3pm: Phoned Vodafone today about this and they suggested that I could find the total at the bottom of the unbilled calls section, but after 21 pages of bill it turned out there was no total. In the end they agreed that there was an issue so they’ve raised it with the technical team to look into and I should hear back within 3 working days - but they might have to delete my account in the process :O

For a while I’ve been turning off iptables to let my secondary machine connect as synergy client to let me use one keyboard and mouse across both machines.  Finally today I decided to set up the rules properly to do it, so here’s how:

Create a new rule file in the iptables chain directory for incoming rules:

sudo vi /etc/iptables.d/filter/INPUT/53-custom-synergys.rule

with the following lines in it:

# Allows incoming flows for Synergy.
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 24800 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 24800 -j ACCEPT

Restart iptables for the rules to take effect

sudo /etc/init.d/iptables restart

Abraham told Abimelech Sarah was his sister, so he’d taken her to be his wife. Before he does anything, God comes to him in a dream to warn him.

God keeps Abimelech from sinning thus resulting in him bringing fear of God to him and his people and providing for Abraham and Sarah.

Reaction: Arose early to obey

"You are a dead man...for the penalty of your sin is death"

God comes and prevents the sin from increasing - he protects Sarah where Abraham should have done, but more than that - Abimelech’s nation now fears God. For God always recieves the glory.

Abimelech is honest to God and God acknowledges Abimelech’s honesty and integrity, but makes it clear it is His doing - “I prevented you from sinning”

Lead me not to sin against you and save me from my faults becoming greater sin. Amen

If we were to talk less and pray more, things would be better than they are in the world

John Owen, The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power [Christian Focus, 2004], 362

He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. (Genesis 7:23-8:1 ESV)

Here we see the earth covered in water, every living thing blotted out except in the midst of the water there is a big box floating with a family and lots of animals in it. They’ve been in this box for what must have seemed like ages and just have with them the food God told them to bring. I wonder if they were beginning to think God had forgotten them? God could have let them perish as the rest of mankind had but no - God remembers Noah as he has promised him and makes the waters subside revealing his creation once more.

We are all at the mercy of God - we are his creation and he can do with us what he will. God chose to save Noah and his family in order to restart the human race, Noah trusted God and did what he was told - resulting in his salvation whilst all else was destroyed.

Putting it simply, everything was headed for destruction, but God remembered Noah and rescued him.

What difference will it make remembering that we are all at God’s mercy to do what he will with?

Will you trust God in the midst of destruction?

God won’t forget us even if his promises seem a long time coming and it feels as if he has.

• Disable anything that will write to the database

  • Update the my.cnf files for all servers to support circular replication, by adding log-slave-updates and ensuring you have unique server ids and the auto increment values are suitable. Then restart mysql to pick up the config changes.

  • Ensure your existing replication is up-to-date using: SHOW SLAVE STATUS

  • Stop replication on both existing servers using STOP SLAVE

  • Create a backup of the database from the server that will be just before your new server in the circle using: mysqldump --master-data=1 -a -c -Q {db} >  {filename} 

  • Add the userids for replication to your new server.

  • Transfer the backup to your new server and import it.  

  • Change the master config on the new server to point to the server before it in the circle, using the values from the database backup (head -30 {filename} should get you them) and start the slave using: STOP SLAVE; CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.00001', MASTER_LOG_POS=764,MASTER_HOST='{hostname}'; START SLAVE;

  • Update the master config on the next server in the circle to point to your new server using the command above, taking the values for the log file and position from your new server using: SHOW MASTER STATUS

For a while I’ve been following the updates on a new plugin for Wordpress - Artsy Editor which gives you a completely clean page in which to write your post with easy access to the formatting options through a popup which appears intelligently when you select text, as seen in the image above. You can also drag an image into the editor to upload and insert it where you are typing. All in all it works really smoothly.

In the new release of Wordpress 3.2 there is also a similar full browser editing feature included called distraction-free mode. It works pretty well and but it doesn’t have drag and drop uploading and it’s formatting bar feels more cluttered. While you are writing both options provide you with a completely clear page in your browser when you move your mouse with the distraction-free editor you get a full toolbar appear, where as in Artsy Editor, the interface stays very minimal until you select the text or click on one of the controls. The Wordpress distraction-free view pulls in the editor css specified by your theme for the editing section in the page, where as Artsy Editor allows you to choose a background and font from a list of choices - which works well as the whole page takes on the background colour not just the editing section as the wordpress view does. The other major advantage in Artsy Editor for me is in the ease of publishing (I’m very prone to leave drafts sitting around for months) - when you move the mouse from editing, the one button it shows is to Publish (you can hover over it to save draft, preview, view HTML or send to trash).

The distraction-free editor isn’t that far behind and I can see it improving in the coming releases, but for me I prefer the streamlined interface of Artsy Editor, particularly it’s drag and drop image handling.  Try out the uncluttered interface of Artsy Editor for yourself at the website!