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MSI K9MM-V & Fedora instabilities

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I have finally given up on the apalling MSI K9MM-V motherboard and Fedora 8. While tweaking BIOS and kernel options resulted in a modicum of stability, it was only briefly sustained and kernel panics frequently resurfaced during reboots.

So farewell to the K9MM-V and a welcome hello to the Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2. This is a more costly board but having used Gigabyte boards successfully in the past I am happy to pay a little extra for a reliable platform.

I opted for a straight board switch and connected up the same trusty Seagate Barracuda IDE drives in a RAID1 mirror configuration. The mobo swap was relatively straightforward (apart from the processor being stuck fast to the heatsink on the old board), but unfortunately no matter what combination of boot options I used the Fedora kernel just would not detect my disk drives.

After much head scratching I finally realised that the ata drivers were missing from the initrd image and so I needed to rebuild. So for those in the same bind, here’s what to do:

Boot from the Fedora install DVD into rescue mode (your partitions will be mounted under /mnt/sysimage)

chroot /mnt/sysimage

Edit /etc/modprobe.conf and add the line “options libata atapi_enabled=1”

rm -f /etc/sysconfig/hwconf

/usr/sbin/kudzu

mkinitrd -f /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

To check the contents of your new image:

gzip -cd initrd-$(uname -r).img | cpio -id

I spy on iPhone

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I decided to investigate which URLs the iPhone accesses when you use the various embedded applications. To capture the requests I simply setup a Squid proxy on the same local WiFi network and configured the iPhone to proxy all network connections through it.

Below are the results:

Safari – Yahoo! Search:

GET http://m.yahoo.com/apple/onesearch?pintl=en_gb&p=foobar&pcarrier=O2+-+UK&pmcc=234&pmnc=10

(note the carrier name and network code are included in the search request)

Safari – Google Search:

GET http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=foobar&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=safari

Yahoo! Weather:

POST http://iphone-wu.apple.com/dgw?imei=REMOVED&apptype=weather

Yahoo! Stocks:

POST http://iphone-wu.apple.com/dgw?imei=REMOVED&apptype=finance

Google Maps:

POST http://iphone-wu.apple.com/glm/mmap
CONNECT iphone-maps.apple.com:443

iTunes Store:

GET http://phobos.apple.com/bag.xml
GET http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/storeFront
GET http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTopTensList

YouTube:

GET http://iphone-wu.apple.com/feeds/standardfeeds/most_viewed?start-index=1&max-results=25&format=2,3&client=ytapi-apple-iphone&time=all_time
GET http://iphone-wu.apple.com/feeds/standardfeeds/recently_featured?start-index=1&max-results=25&format=2,3&client=ytapi-apple-iphone
GET http://img.youtube.com/vi/ …
CONNECT http://www.google.com:443

It is interesting to note that most traffic is proxied via Apple’s servers – anyone say single point of failure? The reference to IMEI in the Weather and Stocks requests has been discussed at length in other forums before. This is a misnomer, the reference is believed to be just a GUID.

What is more interesting (or worrying!) is the mysterious encrypted connection to http://www.google.com (SSL port 443) whenever YouTube is accessed. I wonder what data is being shared here – and why?

What’s all the fuss about Winchester?

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For a while now friends have been recommending that we visit the historic City of Winchester. Having a couple of free days, we decided to do just that.

We admittedly had high expectations due to the many endorsements and were keen to explore what we imagined would be a delightfully rural setting with an air of quaint country charm. Unfortunately our first impressions of Winchester were formed by our drive through the surrounding industrial estates – hardly the scenic route. Putting the initial disappointment aside, we took a leisurely stroll around the locality.

Winchester’s High Street is much like any other carbon-copy English town. There is the usual proliferation of chain stores, dominated by mobile phone outlets and clothes shops. We did not feel the urge to explore The Brooks shopping centre and sample the delights of Argos and Specsavers within. Not exactly boutique shopping! Despite looking like a pedestrianised zone, cars appear unexpectedly from side roads and buses thunder down the middle with scant regard for human life. This is not an area for a relaxed wander.

Perhaps we formed an unrepresentative view of the local population as we visited during half-term, but the streets were thick with feral chavs and marauding teenagers. Winchester also seems to have the greatest population of drunks, vagrants and oddballs outside of London’s West End and more motability scooters than you’ll encounter on a day-trip to Bognor Regis.

After two hours of trudging our way around the city centre we were still at a total loss as to where all the interesting historical sites or cultural havens were supposed to be. We sought out the ‘famous’ Hyde Abbey Garden (the last known resting place of King Alfred the Great) but were disappointed to discover that it comprises nothing more than a few strategically placed holly bushes in the middle of a leisure centre car park.

We stopped at a newsagents to check out some Winchester postcards, which we hoped would give us a clue. Winchester has a Cathedral, that’s it. If you have visited any cathedrals before, then this one is not particularly remarkable – certainly not worthy of the £5 entrance fee for a quick look around.

We left Winchester disappointed and confused and certainly won’t be in any hurry to return. If anyone can enlighten me to the delights that we missed then please post a comment back.

(Another glowing review of Winchester can be read at ChavTowns).

iPhone as a Squeezebox controller

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SlimDevices have launched an updated version of Squeezebox – the Squeezebox Duet – which includes a separate wireless remote for browsing and controlling music. While this looks like a fantastic new product if you don’t already own a Squeezebox, the same can be achieved with the iPhone / iPod Touch and the iPeng skin for Squeezecenter.

If you’re not running SqueezeCenter 7 already, download and install the latest version from SlimDevices. Next download the iPeng skin then point your mobile Safari browser to http://squeezecenter:9000/iPeng/ (replacing squeezecenter with the IP address of your installation).