Here at Liquidstate, we have a growing family of Logitech Squeezebox devices. For those that don't know, Squeezebox is a range of network music players originally from Slim Devices, who were aquired by Logitech. Much like their more expensive and arguably more popular Sonos counterparts, the Squeezebox devices can play »
In linux, hard drives are referred to as devices and are represented as pseudo files in /dev. For example, the first partition of the second lowest numbered SCSI drive is /dev/sdb1. If the drive referred to as /dev/sda is removed, then the remaining partition is automatically renamed /dev/ »
I used to pride myself on how well organised my "stuff" was. At home, I diligently hole punched my bank statements and other various incoming dead tree sources and put them in a collection of ring binders, all in chronological order naturally. Likewise, at work, I sorted my emails into »
I can only really remember honestly enjoying one maths lesson in my life. It was spread over a number of lectures as part of my degree course at Edinburgh University and taught us all how RSA Public Key cryptography actually works. Now, I’ve long since forgotten the finer details »
Open Source is a term that is widely used, but is often misunderstood. At its core, however, is a simple philosophy that promotes a collaborative approach to development with the end product, source materials, and design documentation made available at no cost to the public. The end product could be »
CloudFlare is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and distributed Domain Name Server (DNS) service aimed at enhancing the performance and security of websites. According to CloudFlare, on average, a website using their service will load twice as fast, use 60% less bandwidth and will stop malware bots and spammers reaching »
Here at Liquidstate, we use Picasa 3 at home to manage our photos and Picasa Web Albums to share them with family and friends. As you would expect, we store all of our data on a central storage server (UnRAID running on an ESXi host if you must know). Unfortunately, »
After our holiday in Ireland, Robert wanted the boat left in Oban where we would collect it the following weekend to begin his own holiday trip through the Caledonia Canal and up to Shetland. Jen's mum took the ferry over to Larne and met us at Carrickfergus where she would »
The Ireland Sailing Holiday was a little different from our usual; for a starter, we stayed in the same place for a week! After Robert and I had sailed the boat from Troon to Carrickfergus, Jen and Chris came over on the ferry to Larne with Kyle. Robert had some »
In preparation for our sailing holiday in Ireland, it was agreed that me and Jen's Dad would sail the boat over from Troon to Carrick Fergus and the girls would follow on the ferry with Kyle the next day. Robert and I left on Friday evening after work, with a »
Just come back from an absolute cracker of a sailing holiday with Ben, Fi, baby Ella and resident crew, Lise. This was our first trip with two babies onboard and it was either going to go very well or very badly! We started off in our home port of Troon »
At home, I've got a Dell PowerEdge 840 server running VMWare ESXi 4.x. I was looking for a method to monitor and manage the underlying hardware - particularly BIOS settings and a way to 'reset' the alert light on the front of the chassis after some recent tinkering. The »
I've been sailing for about ten years, since being dragged into it by my then-girlfriend-now-wife, Jen. Throughout that time, my skills have progressed and I'm at a point where I don't mind telling people that, yes, "I can sail". I've seen my share of problems, bad weather and equipment failure. »
After a quiet week in Oban with Mhairi, Emma and Lise it was time for our resident sailor Rus to join us, with his girlfriend Alimay. This was also set to be the point where I took over as skipper, taking on the responsibilities of getting us from A to »
After a successful week cruising around Mull with the family and getting Kyle settled with boat life, it was time for a new challenge - two babies on a boat! Mhairi brought along her wee daughter Ella, who is roughly ages with Kyle. Unfortunately, due to various scheduling issues with »
Jen and I travelled up to Oban for a family holiday on Sat 17th. The rest of the Masterton clan had already spent a week or so in Oban so we didn't hang around, and the next morning we were on our way to Loch Aline, on the Sound of »
Well, last year we did the western isles because we had pretty much stretched as far as we could for a two week holiday. Jen wanted to do another big trip, and Robert was keen to take the boat over Sweden - so plans were made. Unfortunately, we didn't quite »
Oh ... did I not mention that after our attempts in 2007 and 2008, we can now finally say that we've completed the Scottish Islands Peak Race! Get in! Ultimate respect to our runners Ben and Bruce who pushed themselves through this grueling event! As usual, the weather proved interesting with »
Ever since our first sailing holiday to Ireland, our plans have become grander ever year. We've sailed a the full length of the UK, stretched as far north as we go, and gone as far west. We've always promised to go on a nice 'easy' trip around the western isles »
I was in the market for a new PC and, with all the hype, I thought it might be interesting to try the Mac life for a while. I certainly wasn't brave (or feeling flush) enough to splash out on a nice Mac Pro, so instead, with a little help »
Well, some may say it was inevitable, others might say its overdue, but on Christmas day, Jen accepted my proposal, and we're now in the throws of organising the wedding! There is a Wedding Website that is currently limited to those who have been invited, but may be made public »
A great little scenic dive to finish off the maldives holiday, and also my 60th dive. Great to finish off on a round number for some reason! After the problems with my sinuses the previous day, I was a bit worried I'd be stuck at 59! »
This site is a thila and noted for shark sightings. Expect to see white tip, grey reef, silver tips and if you are lucky even hammer head sharks. Sadly, we didn't see any sharks, and I had problems with my sinuses, which meant I had to skip the following two »
The Olhahli Caves are the northern tip of the North Male Atoll - on the north Reetha Rah. There are a couple of small caves at 15 and 20 metres but the main attraction is a big cave 40 metres long at a depth of 25 metres. In the big »
Yet another dive on the Nelivaru Thila. This time we saw a great display of white finned sharks. They were cleaning in/around the reef at about 30 meters, right at the start of our dive. We stayed there at 30 metres for about 20 minutes, putting us into mandatory »
The Maddoo Giri was absolutely fantastic. Its a strangle old reef being 25m-30m at its deepest, and 3m on top. There's an absolutely breathtaking swim through / hole on the northern side of the reef. We dropped on the western side into 28m, and swam around to the north to investigate »
On this occassion we were honoured to see an absolutely fantastic Manta Ray display on the eastern side of the Thila towards the end of the dive. We all slumped down onto the reef at about 15m and watched these fantastic animals fly above the reef while the cleaner fish »
Dhonfanu is an oval shaped reef starting at a depth of 7 to 14 meters. One side of the Thila forms a beautiful swim-through beginning at 18 meters and ending around 25 meters. There is a canyon on the other side of the Thila between the main reef and a »
This was another dive on the Horubadhoo Thila, or Dhigali Haa, as its also known. However, this time it was a night dive! We had a nice drift with a gentle current, and about 4m visibility. »
Dhigu Thila is a very long, narrow reef which rises from the sea floor to the crest at 8 to 16 meters depth. Both sides of the Thila drop down like a wall and most of the overhangs are between 20 to 25 meters. On either the western or eastern »
