81st Person

Cocktail Du Jour: Rhubarb Rumble

2017-03-03T20:28:00.000+00:00

Rheum rhabarbarum

Rhubarb Rumble

Recipe:

2 Measures Warner Edwards Rhubarb Gin

0.5 Measure Kamm and Sons Apertif

0.5 Measure Domaine De Canton Ginger Liquer

0.5 Measure Noilly Prat Vermouth

2 Dashes of Fee's Rhubarb Bitters

Shake with ice, strain and serve. Throw in a slice of lemon if you are feeling zesty!

Complete List of Music Featured in the BBC Series Luther

2015-12-22T22:00:00.000+00:00

All episodes Theme Music during opening credits - Paradise Circus by Massive Attack

Luther Series 1 End Credits Music

Episode 1. Gun by Emiliana Torrini
Episode 2. She by Suede (Known as The London Suede to Americans)
Episode 3. Feeling Good by Muse (originally by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse

for the 1965 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd)

Episode 4. Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime by Beck (Originally by The Korgis)
Episode 5. Breath Me by Sia
Episode 6. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone

Luther Series 2 End Credits Music

Episode 1. Big Bad Wolf by The Heavy
Episode 2. Flash by Joan As Policewoman
Episode 3. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) by Marilyn Manson

(originally by Eurythmics)

Episode 4. Palaces of Montezuma by Grinderman

Luther Series 3 End Credits Music

Episode 1. I Got A Thing by Hanni El Khatib
Episode 2. Me and the Devil by Gil Scott-Heron (originally by Robert Johnson)
Episode 3. Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down by Robert Plant
US Broadcast Variation: In Shreds by The Chameleons
Episode 4. Never Gonna Give You Up by The Black Keys (originally by Jerry Butler)

The classical score is by Paul Englishby. Fans of the soundtrack will be excited to see Idris Elba Presents Luther - Songs And Score From Series 1, 2 And 3

http://amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DW8E74M

Luther Series 4 End Credits Music

Episode 1. Money Is Not Our God by Killing Joke
Episode 2. A Few Hours After This by The Cure

Luther Series 5 End Credits Music
Episode 1. Come Together by Spiritualized
Episode 2. Boys & Girls by Alabama Shakes
Episode 3. In This Light OnThis Evening by Editors
Episode 4. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone

Cockfail Du Jour: Golden Apple of the Hesperides

2013-09-21T16:55:00.001+01:00

This may be a somewhat frustrating post since it requires some ingredients that may not readily be at hand. However the reception was so positive I thought I would commit it to posterity.
It came about because my wife had made an Apple crumble and instead of throwing away the Apple stewing water she had the presence of mind to throw in a cinnamon stick and some five spice and donate it to cocktail science. The Apple must was thick enough to require straining but I am sure the same result could be achieved with a decent cloudy Apple juice.
I happened to have some Somerset Pomona but Calvados, cider brandy or even just brandy would suffice.
Smirnoff Gold may not be sitting on everyone's shelf either. The gold element is, of course, superfluous but the cinnamon adds a vital warmth to the mellow truthfulness. If you don't have cinnamon vodka you could always make your own with a normal vodka, a cinnamon stick and a dishwasher...

The recipe:

2 Measures of Smirnoff Gold
1 Measure Triple Sec
1 Measure Pomona or Calvados
1 measure Morgan Spiced Rum
0.75 measure of lemon juice
0.5 measure Sugar Syrup
Apple must/juice to taste about 5 measures or so.

Shake with ice and strain

PS> I Love You: Custom Formatting for Advanced Functions

2013-09-21T00:44:00.000+01:00

So I've been writing advanced functions for some time. They don't do anything particularly clever, normally just collect data for Windows systems that I need on a regular basis that save me retyping endless wmi queries.
The PowerShell elders have done a great job bringing me up to use of custom objects and write-output. The beauty of this is the function / cmdlet returns and object that you can pipe to select-object or format-table or what-ever.
We all know PowerShell has an assumed console width of 80 chars and by default any more than 4 columns will be out out as a list. Whilst it isn't a huge pain to add |format-table -autosize after each candle if you have specific cmdlets that output more than 4 columns and fit comfortably in an 80 or perhaps wider console why not save yourself some typing?
So I've looked into custom formatting and because I didn't find a single source that covered all the angles I thought I'd have a go.

For example I have a function that I use frequently everyday to query Datasynapse grid engines that outputs five fields. The Grid field can be quite long so I use a console width of 140 so it can all fit on one line if I use ft -auto.

The key to custom formatting is to give your project a new filename so instead of being a psobject.customobject it becomes whatever you named it. In my code I create GridInfo:

$line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Config"=$Config;"Engines"=$Engines;"Tasks"=$Tasks}
$result=New-object psobject -Property $line
$result.PSObject.TypeNames.Insert(0,’GridInfo’)
write-output $result

Now I need to provide PS with a xml format definition. These can be stand alone files that you specifically upload using upload-formatdata -prependpath (you could include this in the script) but a more sophisticated route is available.

Having a bunch of these scripts I've saved them all together and created a module. It may sound like overkill but it provides a nice wrapper for your own personal suite of tools and makes them easily portable to other computers or if you want to share with colleagues

The steps for creating a module are
1. Place all your advanced function scripts in a single directory named whatever you want to call your module. It makes sense to keep to one script file per cmdlet plus one for shared functions.
2. Create any custom format templates. In this case I created GridEngiveView.format.ps1xml. Specify the custom object filename and then there are two basic sections:
Table column Headers define the width
Table column items define which properties to display
3. Create a module manifest data file that can define all sorts of things your module needs the most useful of which are:

FormatsToProcess = @("GridEngineView.format.ps1xml")
File list =@("gridinfo.ps1")
4. Add import-module yourmodule to your profile

One important thing to remember is if you need a wider console than 80 characters to either configure your shortcut to always open at the required width or use something like this in your profile or module:

Commands to set PS console width to (e.g.) 140 chars

if ((get-host).ui.rawui.windowsize.width -lt 140) {

$pshost=get-host

$pswindow=$pshost.ui.rawui

$newsize=$pswindow.buffersize

$newsize.width=140

$pswindow.buffersize=$newsize

$newsize=$pswindow.windowsize

$newsize.width=140

$pswindow.windowsize=$newsize

}

Contents of gridinfoview.format.ps1xml - defining 5 column widths and headers:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<View>

<Name>DefaultView</Name>

<TypeName>GridInfo</TypeName>

</ViewSelectedBy>

</TableColumnHeader>

</TableColumnHeader>

</TableColumnHeader>

</TableColumnHeader>

</TableColumnHeader>

</TableHeaders>

<PropertyName>Server</PropertyName>

</TableColumnItem>

<PropertyName>Status</PropertyName>

</TableColumnItem>

</TableColumnItem>

<PropertyName>Config</PropertyName>

</TableColumnItem>

<PropertyName>State</PropertyName>

</TableColumnItem>

</TableColumnItems>

</TableRowEntry>

</TableRowEntries>

</TableControl>

</View>

</ViewDefinitions>

</Configuration>

Function to query a test list or servername for Datasynapse Info:

function get-gridinfo{

[CmdletBinding()]

Param ( [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,Position=0)]

[STRING[]]$Computernames,

[SWITCH]$Engine

)
Begin {

if (($computernames[0]).contains(".txt") ){ $computernames=(gc $computernames)}

}
Process {

$engines=0

foreach ($Server in $Computernames) {

$grid=$null;$config=$null;$state=$null;$status=$null

$os=(gwmi win32_operatingsystem -computername $server).osarchitecture

if ($os -eq "64-Bit") {$dspath="\\$server\c$\program files (x86)\datasynapse"} Else {

$dspath="\\$server\c$\program files\datasynapse"}

$Service=get-wmiobject win32_service -computername $Server -filter "Name='Datasynapse'"

$Config=gc "$dspath\engine\profiles\$server\distro.dat"

if (!$grid) {$grid=(select-string -path "$dspath\engine\profiles\$server\logs\engined.log" -pattern "EngineDaemonLoginPlugin Logged in to "|

select-object -last 1).tostring().split("/")[3]}

if (test-path "$dspath\engine\profiles\$server\enginestate.dat") {

if ((get-content "$dspath\engine\profiles\$server\enginestate.dat").contains("true")) {

$State="Enabled"} Else {$State="Disabled"}

}
$line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Status"="$($service.StartMode)`($($service.state)`)`|$($service.startname)";"Config"=$Config;

"Engines"=$Engines;"Tasks"=$Tasks;"Grid"=$Grid;"State"=$state}

if (!($engine)) {$Result=New-object psobject -Property $line

$Result.PSObject.TypeNames.Insert(0,’GridInfo’)

Write-output $Result}

If ($Engine) {

$procs=gwmi win32_process -computername $Server

$engines=0;($procs|where {$_.caption -eq "invoke.exe"})|foreach-object {$engines++}

$tasks=0;$procs|where {$_.caption -eq "YOUR_ANALITICAL_ENGINE.exe"}|foreach-object {$tasks++}

$line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Config"=$Config;"Engines"=$Engines;"Tasks"=$Tasks}

$Result=New-object psobject -Property $line

$Result.PSObject.TypeNames.Insert(0,’GridInfoEngineView’)

write-output $Result

}#End If

}#End ForEach

}#End Process

}#End Function

Cocktail Du Jour: A Bramble Shambles

2013-08-18T17:41:00.001+01:00

Here's another twist on the Bramble

2 measures of Gin
1 measure of Cassis
1 measure of Lychee liquer
1 measure of lemon juice
1 measure of sugar syrup
0.5 measure of Cherry Brandy
A handful of blackberries passed through a sieve

pour over a glass of crushed ice for the traditional bramble bleed

Cocktail Du Jour: Dirty Margarita

2013-07-30T21:45:00.001+01:00

2 measures of Tequila
1 measure of Triple Sec
1 measure of Lime Juice
2 teaspoons of Jalapeno 'brine'
Finely crushed ice
A slice of Jalapeno to decorate (if you must)

What better way to cope with a heatwave than a Margarita? Not being one one for a salinated edge (careful to avoid the use of 'salty rim') I was looking for a way to inject a bit of bite into the mix. Brine is probably the wrong word for the water, salt and spirit vinegar concoction the Mexican Discovery Jalapenos swim in but, whatever, it adds a definite spikey finish to to this most refreshing of cocktails.

If you don't fancy keeping a regular stock of limes I recommend keeping a bottle of Lime juice in the fridge for that emergency cocktail moment, while you are at it get a bottle of lemon juice as well.

Whilst we are on the subject of cupboard essentials an ice crusher is an investment you'll never regret. For not much more than a tenner you can chill glasses and turn out a Margarita in minutes. Look for a stylish chrome one with decent capacity, non-slip base base and 2 crush sizes.

Holy Cow Barman! Vodka Made From Milk!

2013-07-04T22:04:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to share my latest discovery: Black Cow Vodka, made from the fermented whey of Dorset Cow's milk.

I came across it in a Vodka Martini (mootini?) and the creamy texture (not taste) of milk is unmistakable without being gimmicky.

The Black Cow website claims the maker has a "deep, personal interest in Vodka" - something I recommend you only put on your CV if you are - a maker of Vodka.

I was happy to discover a local purveyor and and am looking forward to experimenting.

Its got me thinking if Britain can produce top quality Vodka - is there a British Vermouth out there? Tradition tells us Noilly Prat is the only option for a perfect Martini - does anyone have a better suggestion?

Cocktail Du Jour: Apricot Martini

2013-05-18T20:38:00.001+01:00

A twist on a classic Clarridge

1 1/2 measures gin

1 1/2 measures vermouth

1/2 measure triple sec

1/2 measure brandy

A squeeze of lemon juice

A teaspoon of apricot jam

Shake with ice

Fans of the original will note I clearly had no apricot brandy in the house.

Triple sec is a sound investment for the new cocktail maker. There are very few ingredients it doesn't perk up with its orangey warmth.

Cocktail Du Jour: Rose Turkish Delight Martini

2013-02-03T20:52:00.001+00:00

I found this bottle of Pomegranate and Rose cordial in the cupboard and having sampled its pleasures as a cordial I decided it would be even more delicious as a cocktail. The evocation of those mysterious pink Turkish Delights, that appeared only at Christmas, was unmissable. All that is needed is something to support and enhance the floral notes and so I used Pinky Botanical Vodka and Lillet Blanc

The Recipe:
2 measures of Vodka
1 measure Vermouth
1/4 measure of pomegranate and rose cordial (a cautious slosh)
10 drops lemon juice (a tentative squeeze)
Shake with plenty of ice.

A rim of icing sugar to emulate the white dust might be a nice touch but personally I couldn't be bothered.

A taste of Eastern promise guaranteed.

Cocktail Du Jour: A trio of Tayberry Treasures

2012-07-11T20:31:00.003+01:00

My garden is awash with Tayberries at the moment so I thought I'd put then to good use. Of course you could substitute Tayberry with Raspberry or BlackBerry or just about any other kind of berry.

Tayberry Caipirinha

Tayberry Caipirinha

3 Measures of Cachaça
0.75 Lime (Skin on -Muddled)
A handful (15-20) Tayberries (muddled)
0.5 Measure Gomme (Sugar Syrup 2:1)
Shake with Ice, pour into an Ice filled Tumbler

Tayberry Martini

2.5 Measures Vodka

A handful (15-20) Tayberries (muddled)

0.5 Measure of Gomme

0.5 Measure Lillet Blanc

Shake with ice and fine strain into a Martini glass

Tayberry Zinger

Pinky with the Zinger

2 Measures Vodka (Pinky Botanic Vodka is recommended)

A handful (15-20) Tayberries (muddled)

0.5 Measure of Gomme

0.5 Measure Lillet Blanc

0.5 Measure Lime Juice

Shake with ice and fine strain into a Martini glass

Lillet Blanc is my discovery of 2012. The key ingredient of a Vesper (the Bond cocktail) it adds a fantastic honeyed warmth and really lifts the humble martini.

The Vesper Family Photo

Technorati Tags: Cocktail,Cocktail Du Jour

Solar con Fusion: BAD Solar PV Salesman Experience

2011-10-11T14:07:00.001+01:00

I am hoping to join the Solar generation for sometime and have started getting quotations from Solar PV installation companies. So far I’ve contacted 3 companies. Two of these were recommended in this excellent article on Money Saving Expert. They were able to provide initial details quotes and specs with the help of Google Earth The EVOEnergy quote is particularly impressive. The third, Solar Fusion was a recommendation from a friend-of-a-friend and they could only quote in person
Now before I start my rant I know salespeople have a difficult job and work on commission. I also know that the aforementioned f-o-a-f is very happy with the service that they received from Solar Fusion which is why I felt ok inviting them into my house. Here's my review of Solar Fusion's visit.
The Salesman Cometh
To be fair the salesman was a nice guy and the presentation was good but there was very little going down on paper or into any kind of calculating device. Despite several attempts to steer him onto price and details he remained doggedly determined to ‘save the best for last’. It all started to seem a bit 70’s double-glazing to me.
The Money Shot
Finally after two and a half hours we got to the cost – all he needed to know was how many panels I wanted. Strangely I thought I’d invited an expert to advise on how many panels I could/would/should need based on his vast experience and 20 second glance at my roof. We settled on 10 – its a round number. So he gave me the price, available for 6 months, but wait there was more… If I agreed to host a board, be flexible with dates, supply daily meter readings, supplied a glowing testimonial and signed up on the spot I could have 25% off. But wait! There’s even more… after a quickly answered call to a very well prepared person at HQ I could have 12 panels for the price of 10.
Whilst the words sounded great the offer wasn’t. I knew from my other quotations that the price per KWh was £3,300-£3,900 or £850-950 per panel. Solar Fusion were offering £8,000 (£1,600 per panel) reduced to only £5,454 (or £1,000 per panel).
The Salesman Stormeth Off
After politely declining this offer, the new friendship turned sour. The salesman told us we were wasting his time and we were not to contact his company again even if we wanted to accept his initial 6 month price as stock was limited and there were too many applicants. He tried to get us to sign a form declining his offer and waiving our rights to something called the “Data base protection act” (Sic). Needless to say we did not sign anything. Two can play the paperless game.
REALity Check
Anyone investigation Renewable Energy should definitely check out REAL the Renewable Energy Assurance Scheme. Their Consumer Guide and Consumer Code has a lot of good advice. Solar Fusion are not a member of REAL which is probably why they broke every one of the following rules:
Companies’ representatives should deal with you in a courteous, constructive and prompt manner, and they should show you evidence of their identification before they enter your home, including their name and their job title. Do not sign a contract with a company whose representative:

stays in your home for more than two hours (except in exceptional circumstances)

offers you a high initial price followed by a discount

offers you a discount for signing the contract that day

offers you a discount for monitoring performance or providing testimonials

withholds price information until the end of the visit or ask you what other quotations you have already received

claims that there is limited availability of the product.

I should point out that this article refers to Solar Fusion based in Bournemouth, UK and is based on my own personal experience.

Technorati Tags: Solar,SolarFusion

Cocktail Du Jour: Cherry Vanilla Laika

2011-10-06T19:28:00.001+01:00

Inspired by the plain old Vanilla Laika in the essential Diffords Guide here is my adaptation:

In the Shaker: In the Glass:

2 Shots Vanilla Vodka 2 Shots Apple Juice

1 Shot Cherry Brandy Crushed Ice

1 Shot Creme De Cassis Selection of berries to garnish

0.5 Shot Lemon Juice

0.5 Shot Sugar Syrup (2:1)

Ice

Instructions:
Shake and pour over crushed ice – top up with apple juice to taste and sprinkle on a few berries -

PS I Love You: Using Powershell to List Outlook Folders

2011-09-28T18:59:00.001+01:00

When my wife phones with a technical query it is usually something I know the answer to straight away but this time she set me a real challenge.
She wanted to export her Outlook folder hierarchy in printable format. Just the folder names no need for counts or anything.
I knew this could be accomplished with Powershell but I am yet to do any PS with Outlook. With a bit of help from Richard , Uwe and Shay I got the bones of a script together and with a few tweaks to select only the Inbox subfolders and to indent hierarchy I produced the following.
It is very rough and if anyone cares to comment on how to spruce it up I’d be grateful. My intention isn’t to claim any kudos, just to present something that someone might find useful.
$outputfile="c:\temp\MailboxHierarchy"
$outlook = new-object -com Outlook.Application
$namespace = $outlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
$mb=$outlook.session.folders|?{$_.name -like "Mailbox*"}
$INbox=$MB.folders|?{$_.name -eq "Inbox"}
function Get-MailboxFolder($folder)
{Add-content -path $outputfile "$prefix $($folder.name)"
$prefix+="-" #Extend prefix for each subsequent level of subfolder
foreach ($f in $folder.folders) {
Get-MailboxFolder $f
} #End ForEach
} #End Function
$prefix="" #Reset prefix for toplevel folder
foreach ($folder in $INbox.Folders) {
Get-MailboxFolder $folder
} #End ForEach

Powershell and root/HPQ: HBA details

2011-09-28T18:26:00.001+01:00

Here is a smart little function for reporting the details of installed Fibre Channel HBA cards in HP servers. It is limited to HP Servers with WBEM installed as it makes use of my new best friend the root/WMI class. See my earlier post on how I used this to get a health status report. This time I’ve discovered the exciting possibilities of the HPFCAHBA family. It is a useful tool for obtaining WWNs remotely, checking firmware revisions and finding unused adapters. When dot sourced it behaves like a proper powershell command and returns results to the pipeline.


Function Get-HPHBA {
[CmdletBinding()]
        Param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,Position=0)]
        [STRING[]]$Computernames
                )

Process {


foreach ($Server in $Computernames) {
  try {$mf=(gwmi -ComputerName $Server win32_computersystem -ea stop).Manufacturer
      if (!($mf -eq "HP") -or ($mf -like "Hewlett*")){Write-Verbose "$Server is not an HP";break}}

  Catch {Write-Verbose "$Server is not available";break}
                                               
  try {$FCPort=gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPFCHBA_FCPORT -ea stop}
  Catch {Write-Verbose "No HBA Found";break}
            foreach ($HBA in $FCPort) {
              $Slot=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPFCHBA_location|where {$_.Name -eq    HBA.PermanentAddress}).PhysicalPosition

              $Model=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPFCHBA_physicalpackage|where {$_.Name -eq $HBA.PermanentAddress}).Model

              $Serial=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPFCHBA_physicalpackage|where {$_.Name -eq $HBA.PermanentAddress}).SerialNumber

              $Driver=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/wmi -class MSFC_fcadapterHBAattributes|where {$_.SerialNumber -eq $Serial}|select -first 1).DriverVersion

              $FW=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPFCHBA_firmwareidentityfw|where {$_.Name -eq $HBA.PermanentAddress}).VersionString

             $line=@{Server=$Server;WWN=$HBA.permanentAddress; Status=$($HBA.StatusDescriptions); Slot=$Slot; Model=$Model; Firmware=$FW;Driver=$Driver}                         

             Write-Output (New-Object psobject -property $line)|select Server,WWN,Model,Driver,Firmware,Slot,Status

             }#End Foreach HBA
        }#ENd ForEach Server
    }#End Process
}End Function

Powershell Gotcha: The Kink In The Powershell Pipeline

2011-09-22T18:15:00.001+01:00

powershell This one had a few of us scratching our heads today:
Issuing 2 output producing statements at the console worked as you would expect:
PS C:\> get-service|select -first 5 Name,status

Name                Status
----                     -----
Alerter               Stopped
ALG                  Stopped
AppMgmt          Stopped
aspnet_state     Stopped
AudioSrv           Running

PS C:\> get-process|select -first 5 Name,id

Name                           Id
----                                --
Acrobat                        8660
acrotray                       2684
aruser                          424
aruser                          464
AuditManagerService 2012

But put them in a script and the get process results were lost - seeming outputed as blank lines. Tacking on a Fortmat-Table produced the error:
out-lineoutput : The object of type "Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Internal.Format.FormatStartData" is not valid or not in the correct sequence. This is likely caused by a user-specified "format-table" command which is conflicting with the default formatting.
I could reproduce this at the console by joining the expressions on the same line
PS C:\> get-service|select -first 5 Name,status;get-process|select -first 5 processname,ID|ft
Name                 Status
----                      ------
Alerter                Stopped
ALG                    Stopped
AppMgmt            Stopped
aspnet_state       Stopped
AudioSrv             Running
out-lineoutput : The object of type "Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Internal.Format.FormatStartData" is not valid or not in the correct sequence. This is likely caused by a user-specified "format-table" command which is conflicting with the default formatting.     + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [out-lineoutput], InvalidOperationException     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ConsoleLineOutputOutOfSequencePacket,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.OutLineOutputCommand

My assumption was that the line break in the script or the semi-colon in the console was terminating the pipeline. This was my mistake. As Don Jones painstaking points out here the ; character doesn't terminate the pipeline, but does terminate the expression. The same principle was true of the script - although the commands were on separate lines the use of the select statement tells the pipeline to expect output in that format. When the second expression sends differently formatted data the pipeline doesn't know how to handle it and it explodes (well...fizzles).

The solution is the oft overlooked OUT-DEFAULT

PS C:\> get-service|select -first 5 Name,status|out-default;get-process|select -first 5 processname,ID Name                                 Status
----                                       ------
Alerter                               Stopped
ALG                                    Stopped
AppMgmt                            Stopped
aspnet_state                      Stopped
AudioSrv                            Running

ProcessName                   Id
-----------                               --
Acrobat                              8660
acrotray                             2684
aruser                                424
aruser                                464
AuditManagerService       2012

Select-Object with properties somehow suppresses the implicit out-default and needs to be brought into line with any of the explicit formatting options: out-default, ft, out-string etc. Greater minds than mine have reported this as a bug so hopefully it will be consigned to history once V3 is upon us.

Where Luther Meets Gears of War 3

2011-09-18T23:44:00.001+01:00

Fans of the BBC series Luther may see the Gears of War 3 advert and wonder why the female vocal sounds familiar.
Is is the voice of Hope Sandoval who guested on the Massive Attack track Paradise Circus used as

the music for the opening credits of Luther. The Gears of War advert track is Into Dust from the Mazzy Star album So Tonight That I Might See.

Family Adventures in Skye - Glendale Toy Museum

2011-08-31T21:14:00.001+01:00

Glendale Toy Museum

Much like the Fairy Glen, the Toy Museum in Glendale defies description. If you have any sense of nostalgia for your childhood or an interest in British jocular eccentricities this is a must visit. 2 rooms crammed with all the forgotten names of the past that bring memories of jumble sales and wet Sunday afternoons come flooding back.
What brings the museum to life is the enthusiastic patter of the curator, Terry Wilding, who happily works his way around the exhibits demonstrating everything from Escalado to an early Diabolo . I thought my children, products of the DS and PlayStation age, would be unimpressed by the thoughts of whipping a drawing pin but they were entranced. For an hour or so they were the children we remembered ourselves being, gazing into the kaleidoscopes and trying to snag the elusive rubber band loop.

Sadly the museum is to close in 2012 and maybe a little piece of all our childhoods will be lost.

If you are looking for a cottage on Skye in Glendale - a cock's stride away from the Three Chimneys and the Toy Museum I recommend this one. Beautifully appointed and sleeps up to 8.

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/scotland/sc98.htm

My Other sky post:

Uig: Brewery Shop, Pottery and Fairy Glen

Blue Skye Thinking - The magic of Uig

2011-08-29T20:19:00.002+01:00

Uig

Skye Brewery Shop in Uig

Having just returned from my first ever visit to the Isle of Skye I thought I ‘d post some things I really enjoyed to encourage others to do the same. It may not be rock and roll but for a relaxing escape it was perfect.
UIG brewery, pottery shop and fairy glen.
Watching the weather forecast every day I dubbed Uig the sunshine capital of Skye because it always seemed to stick out of the cloud that covered the rest of the island. True to form the day we went there was perfect.
My first stop was the Skye Brewery shop. They make a range of excellent ales including the award winning Cuillin Beast – Champion Beer of Scotland 2011. My favourite was the Blaven – absolutely delicious.
A few steps away was the Uig Pottery Experience where the kids whiled away a happy hour decorating plates and mugs. The pottery folks then glaze and fire them. You don’t have to wait around as they even posted them home for us. They arrived in perfect condition and looked great.
Up the road from Uig, lies the mysterious Fairy Glen (or Faery if you are that way inclined). Descriptions and photos don’t do it justice. A eerie landscape of conical hills, a tiny loch and miniature geography. Walking amongst it you feel as if the pixies have just downed tools and melted away into the moss. Completely free, completely natural and completely magical.
For another Skye experience see Glendale Toy Museum…

Cocktail Du Jour–The Sloe Bramble

2011-08-03T00:27:00.002+01:00

The Raw Materials

It has been a roasty-toasty day in the UK and whilst the cotton may be as high as an elephant’s eye the blackberries are also bursting with mellow fruitfulness and just gagging to be turned into a delicious, thirst quenching cocktail.
My children love picking blackberries but have no interest in consuming them so I have no problem amassing a decent haul.
Here is my take on the classic Bramble with apologies if it has been done by other before:
To serve 1:

A desert bowl of ripe blackberries

2 measures of Sloe Gin (can use normal gin)
1 measure of sugar syrup to taste
1/2 measure of lemon juice
Crushed Ice

Instructions
Put the blackberries through a juicer and then drain through a sieve to get a really smooth, unctuous liquor. Old school types might like a sieve and a spoon, first timers may go for a blender but I say you cannot beat the juicer for separating juice from pip and flesh.

The Finished Product

Add the rest of the ingredients to a shaker and do your thing.

Amount of sugar syrup varies depending on the blackberries and the type of gin. I held off buying sugar syrup for ages thinking it was unnecessary clutter but I thoroughly recommend it for even the infrequent mixologist.
Pour into glass of choice pre-filled with lots of crushed ice – decorate with a mint leaf, a whole blackberry or other such tat if you must. Serve with a straw.

Excel Hell–The Conditional Sum

2011-08-03T00:04:00.002+01:00

I’ve just spent too long trying to get a conditional formula working in Excel. The galling this was I already had the formula all worked out in another spread sheet, I just wanted to copy it across. No matter what I tried the result was 0.
Starting from scratch with Excel 2003, I enabled Conditional Sum wizard by choosing Tools, Add-ins, enable the Conditional Sum Wizard.
In Excel 2007 this would be Office Button, Options
I could then set up a formula using it from the Tools menu. I could then sum column C based on the identity of Column A and a condition within Column B.
So far so good but my sheet had 12,000+ rows and the formula was hard coded to the value with col A “BOB”.
{=SUM(IF($A$2:$A$4="BOB",IF($B$2:$B$4<81,$D$2:$D$4,0),0))}
I wanted to change this to a relative value e.g.A2
{=SUM(IF($A$2:$A$4=A2,IF($B$2:$B$4<81,$D$2:$D$4,0),0))}
But every time I did the {curly braces} would disappear and the value would revert back to 0.
The solution is: when editing an array in excel (identifiable by the curly braces) use Control-Shift-Enter to save it instead of just Enter. Bizarre. I could then drag the formula down and everything worked fine.
I don’t know or care enough about Excel to know why this is but if this post saves you the hours of head scratching then it has done its job.

The Hansel and Gretel Principle: Who's Been Eating My CPU?

2011-07-18T20:47:00.000+01:00

This week I have been investigating a mission critical server that loses network connectivity while under heavy load. The server in question is an HP DL 580 G5 running Windows 2003 x64 Enterprise. No errors are logged to give any clues – the server runs at 100% CPU for a while and then just stops pinging.

We know what is causing the load - the server is always in the middle of it’s weekly SQL maintenance plan causing heavy I/O on Disk/CPU and NIC. But SQL was not consuming all the CPU. Something was consuming a lot of kernel mode CPU time. An initial look at ProcessExplorer showed a possible problem – the dreaded High DPC

ProcessExplorer showing DPC using 15.13% CPU

I should confess that, at this point, I do not have an ultimate resolution so if you like stories with a happy ending look away now. The Internet is littered with articles about high DPC (deferred procedure calls) so why waste my time, and by extension, yours, by adding to them. Well, as is so often the case I found a variety of brilliant articles, written by people far cleverer than I, but none of them had the whole story. Having followed this trail of breadcrumbs I decided to gather together these nuggets of information mix a fairy tale metaphor and present them for posterity.

My first challenge was to find what was causing the High level of interrupts.

RATTV3 sounded like the ideal tool RATTV3 is a tool for auditing the execution times of interrupt service routines (ISRs), deferred procedure calls (DPCs), and timer DPCs on systems that are running Windows XP. RATTV3 is designed to help developers of drivers and other kernel mode components audit the ISR and DPC execution time of their components. However RATTV3 does not work on x64.
Kernrate is a useful tool for delving into the kernel without installing full blown debugging tools but where to get the x64 version? You need to install the Windows Driver Developer Kit (WDK) and once installed it is located under c:\WinDDK\7600.16385.1\Tools\Other\amd64.

Kernrate showed me the usual suspects but BXVBDA looked interesting

BXVBDA is the Broadcom Virtual Bus Device Driver for the on board NC373i 1GB Multifunction Network adapter. Without a set of Broadcom Symbols Kernrate could take me no further.
Mark Russinovich’s seminal work Windows Internals suggests using
tracelog –start –f kernel.etl –dpcisr –useperfcounter –b 64
tracelog –stop
tracerpt – kernel.etl –report report.html –f html
This required obtaining tracelog from the WDK under c:\WinDDK\7600.16385.1\Tools\tracing\amd64
On the 2003 x64 server I could generate a splendid HTML report but it did not contain the promised DPC section. Using the XP version of tracerpt and the same .etl source Detailed here I could get a text report which contained DPC information listed by Processor Address.
It felt tantalizingly close. So, on to Xperf
Thanks to Jimmy May for providing a very useful article on how to obtain Xperf by installing part of the Windows SDK I installed the Windows Performance Toolkit on a 2008 server and got hold of xperf.exe and perfctrl.dll from c:\program files\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit and used them to generate an ETL log on the 2003 server which I could then open with xperfview back on the Windows 2008 server.
This gave me a nice graph of DPC activity and a summary table that showed the culprit clearly

Xperfview showing massive DPC activity from BXVBDA.sys

And it is here the trail ends. We've logged a call with HP and shown that performing the same activity using the additional NC360T card installed in the server cuts the DPC count by 50%. Upgrading to the newest driver had no effect.
One other tool worth mentioning was PAL a great Powershell tool that produces really nice looking graphical reports from Perfmon logs.
I will update when I have the answer but in the meantime here are a few other useful articles

Microsoft Performance Team Blog on DPC On Xperf
Using Xperf
Xperf and DPC

Powershell Get-HPHealthState

2011-07-12T06:45:00.001+01:00

In an earlier post I investigated the mysteries of root/HPQ in a fumbling attempt to create a script to check the Health Status of HP servers using WMI. All without the aid of a safety net or any Powershell scripting talent.

I have a couple of updates:

1. Due to a fantatic webcast by Don Jones on combining output from multiple sources I have smartened up the code and turned it into a function that I now dot source to allow me to run GET-HPHealthState from the console. Using the custom object and Write-Output allows me to pipe in and manipulate output in all the usual groovy Powershell ways. I reall

2. It turns out the accessing root/HPQ on the 2008 server I mentioned was just a one off - other 2008 servers respond just fine.

3. root/HPQ documentation is available here

Here is the new code replete with an overenthusiastic help section

Function Get-HPHealthStatus {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Retrieves Health Status from one or more remote computers

.DESCRIPTION
The Get-HPHealthStatus function uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to retrieve HealthState, BatteryStatus,Memory Status and Ethernet Team Redundancy Status from one or more remote computers.
Computer names or IP addresses are expected as pipeline input, or may bepassed to the –computerName parameter.
Each computer is contacted sequentially, not in parallel.

.PARAMETER computerNameAccepts
a single computer name or an array of computer names. You mayalso provide IP addresses.
.OUTPUTS
Server Health Memory Battery Team

.EXAMPLE
Pass computer names from the command line and retrieve their health status information.
Get-HPHealthState servername1,servername2.

.EXAMPLE
Read computer names from a file (one name per line) and retrieve their inventory information
Get-Content c:\names.txt | Get-HPHealthState.
.EXAMPLE
Filtering the Output to only see degraded items and displaying as a grid
Get-Content c:\names.txt | Get-HPHealthState|where {$_.Health -eq "Degraded"}|out-gridview.
.NOTES
You need to run this function as a member of the Admins group; doing so is the only way to ensure you have permission to query WMI from the remote computers.
#>
        [CmdletBinding()]
        Param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,Position=0)]
        [STRING[]]$Computernames
        )

Begin {
        $BatteryStatus=@{"1"="OK";"2"="Degraded"}
        $ArrayStatus=@{"0"="Unknown";"2"="OK";"3"="Degraded";"6"="Error"}
        $HealthStatus=@{"0"="Unknown";"5"="OK";"10"="Degraded";"15"="Minor";"20"="major";"25"="Critical";"30"="Non-Recoverable"}
        $TeamStatus=@{"0"="Unknown";"2"="OK";"3"="Degraded";"4"="Redundancy Lost";"5"="Overall Failure"}
}
Process {
                foreach ($Server in $Computernames) {
                        try {$mf=(gwmi -ComputerName $Server win32_computersystem -ea stop).Manufacturer
                                if (($mf -eq "HP") -or ($mf -like "Hewlett*")){
                                        try {$HS=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HP_WinComputerSystem -ea stop).healthstate
                                                $BS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPSA_ArrayController -ea stop).batterystatus
                                                $MS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HP_Memory -ea stop).HealthState
                                                $TS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HP_EthernetTeam -ea stop).Redundancystatus
                                                $AS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ -class HPSA_ArraySystem -ea stop).OperationalStatus
                                                $line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Health"=$Healthstatus."$HS";"Battery"=$BatteryStatus."$BS";"Memory"=$Healthstatus."$MS";"Team"=$TeamStatus."$TS";"Array"=$ArrayStatus."$AS"}
                                                }#End Try
                                        catch {$line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Health"="HPQ Not Accessible";"Battery"="";"Memory"="";"Team"="";"Array"=""} }
                                        } else {
                                $line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Health"="Not HP";"Battery"="";"Memory"="";"Team"="";"Array"=""}
                                }
                        }#End Try
                catch {$line=@{"Server"=$Server;"Health"="Not Contactable";"Battery"="";"Memory"="";"Team"="";"Array"=""}}
                Write-Output (New-Object psobject -Property $line)|select server,Health,memory,team,battery,array
                }
        }
}

Enable-PSRemoting: Http Response Absent or Invalid

2011-07-01T20:06:00.007+01:00

Today's battle against the forces of the unknown was trying to Enable-PSRemoting on a Windows 2008 R2 server. Even under elevated privileges I kept getting

Enable-PSremoting Error

Set-WSManQuickConfig : The WinRM client cannot process the request. It cannot determine the content type of the HTTP response from the destination computer. The content type is absent or invalid.

I'd come across problems like this before with Windows 2003 but that time the error was that the header was too long.

Set-WSManQuickConfig : <h1 xml:lang="en-US">Bad Request (Request Header Too Long)</h1>At line:50 char:33 + Set-WSManQuickConfig <<<< -force + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [Set-WSManQuickConfig], In validOperationException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : WsManError,Microsoft.WSMan.Management.SetWSManQu ickConfigCommand

Searching on the absent or invalid error turned up precisely 4 (unhelpful) hits. Trying Enable-PSRemoting Http Response Absent Invalid gave me a lot of hits regarding Exchange but nothing of any help to me (which is why I am posting this, in the hope that it will turn up to help the next person in this predicament).

The Solution

As it turns out the problem (and the solution) are the same as before - my Kerberos token was too large. MS have helpfully provided this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970875.
I added the Regkeys suggested, rebooted and all was well. The solution is

HKLM:SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters\MaxRequestBytes=65534
HKLM:SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters\MaxFieldLength=65534

However I am left with the lingering aftertaste of suspicion. My new best friend, KB970875, tells me that the HTTP response absent or invalid is specific to WinRM 1.1. Am I running WInRM 1.1??
Enter http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff520073(WS.10).aspx - the hapless SA's guide to determining which version of Windows Remote Management I have.
One quick query
(get-childitem c:\windows\system32\wsmsvc.dll).versioninfo.productversion
And I am rewarded with the answer: 6.1.7600.16385 which is what I expected (wot wiv it being R2 an' all that)
So why is WinRM 2.0 giving me WInRM 1.1 errors?
Why do MS not fix this issue permanently? My token isn't that big, my admin account has very limited group memberships. The limit seems parsimonious and the resolution arcane. Is there any harm in generating an error that says "Your Kerberos token size is too large etc"?
Yet again more questions than answers...

Adventures in Powershell - The mystery of the root/HPQ

2011-06-30T23:16:00.002+01:00

Today's triumph was over the undocumented world of HP WBEM providers. I needed to query 1000 servers to determine the healthstatus

Powershell to the rescue!

Using Sapien's excellent WMIExplorer I discovered the root/HPQ namespace with hundreds of intruiging looking classes.

Turns out that HP_Wincomputersystem.Healthstate is the key indicator that equates to the Green, Amber or Red icons in HPSMHP. Details from HP are scarce but I am reasonably confident that 5=OK and 10=Degraded.

In our server estate the 2 main faults we have are Array Battery failures and DIMM errors.

So I added a query to check HPSA_ArrayController.BatteryStaus HP_Memory.HealthState and came up with a script the essence of which is:

$BatteryStatus=@{"1"="OK";"2"="Degraded"}
$HealthStatus=@"0"="Unknown";"5"="OK";"10"="Degraded";"15""Minor";`
          "20"="major";"25"="Critical";"30"="Non-Recoverable"}

$HS=(gwmi -computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ `
          -class HP_WinComputerSystem).healthstate
$BS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ `
      -class HPSA_ArrayController).batterystatus
$MS=(gwmi -Computername $Server -namespace root/HPQ `
           -class HP_Memory).HealthState
$line= @{Name="Server";Expression={$Server}},`
       @{Name="Health";Expression={$HealthStatus."$HS"}},`
       @{Name="Battery";Expression={$BatteryStatus."$BS"}},`
       @{Name="Memory";Expression={$HealthStatus."$MS"}}
$line
Worked like a charm :
Server      Health      Battery      Memory
------        ------       -------       ------
server1    Degraded   Degraded OK
server2    Degraded   OK           Degraded
server3    Degraded Degraded OK
etc...

However, the only fly in the, otherwise unctuous, ointment was that the query failed on the few Windows 2008 servers. This appears to be a priviledge problem. Access is denied to root/HPQ unless I run the query locally in an elevated prompt. Access to (e.g.) win32_computersystem is not restricted.

So until I solve that problem this post will be very useful to anyone with HP servers, running windows 2003 whose engineering department refuse to sanction the use of Insight Manager. Welcome to my world...

See my newer posting on this fascinating subject

In the Shaker:	In the Glass:
2 Shots Vanilla Vodka	2 Shots Apple Juice
1 Shot Cherry Brandy	Crushed Ice
1 Shot Creme De Cassis	Selection of berries to garnish
0.5 Shot Lemon Juice
0.5 Shot Sugar Syrup (2:1)
Ice

81st Person

Cocktail Du Jour: Rhubarb Rumble

Rhubarb Rumble

2 Measures Warner Edwards Rhubarb Gin 0.5 Measure Kamm and Sons Apertif 0.5 Measure Domaine De Canton Ginger Liquer 0.5 Measure Noilly Prat Vermouth 2 Dashes of Fee's Rhubarb Bitters Shake with ice, strain and serve. Throw in a slice of lemon if you are feeling zesty!

Complete List of Music Featured in the BBC Series Luther

Cockfail Du Jour: Golden Apple of the Hesperides

PS> I Love You: Custom Formatting for Advanced Functions

Commands to set PS console width to (e.g.) 140 chars

Contents of gridinfoview.format.ps1xml - defining 5 column widths and headers:

Function to query a test list or servername for Datasynapse Info:

Cocktail Du Jour: A Bramble Shambles

Cocktail Du Jour: Dirty Margarita

Holy Cow Barman! Vodka Made From Milk!

Cocktail Du Jour: Apricot Martini

Cocktail Du Jour: Rose Turkish Delight Martini

Cocktail Du Jour: A trio of Tayberry Treasures

Solar con Fusion: BAD Solar PV Salesman Experience

Cocktail Du Jour: Cherry Vanilla Laika

PS I Love You: Using Powershell to List Outlook Folders

Powershell and root/HPQ: HBA details

Powershell Gotcha: The Kink In The Powershell Pipeline

Where Luther Meets Gears of War 3

Family Adventures in Skye - Glendale Toy Museum

Glendale Toy Museum

Blue Skye Thinking - The magic of Uig

Uig

Cocktail Du Jour–The Sloe Bramble

Excel Hell–The Conditional Sum

The Hansel and Gretel Principle: Who's Been Eating My CPU?

Powershell Get-HPHealthState

Enable-PSRemoting: Http Response Absent or Invalid

Enable-PSremoting Error

The Solution

Adventures in Powershell - The mystery of the root/HPQ

2 Measures Warner Edwards Rhubarb Gin

0.5 Measure Kamm and Sons Apertif

0.5 Measure Domaine De Canton Ginger Liquer

0.5 Measure Noilly Prat Vermouth

2 Dashes of Fee's Rhubarb Bitters

Shake with ice, strain and serve. Throw in a slice of lemon if you are feeling zesty!