Ollie Phillips

Dancing. And better than their Dad.

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:44:00 -0800

My two youngest lads show me how the moves "should" be put down. Not convinced, but with no "dance-off" style retort to hand, I can do nothing but classify this as my favourite video of 2011 – and it is.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Personalised Movember 'Thank you' Photos - Limited Edition #in

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:15:05 -0800

For some reason if I post it here, somehow it ends up on Facebook??! So here goes.

Today I'm having a bit of fun, fundraising for Movember.

Donate here: http://mobro.co/olliephillips, and I'll upload a personal piccy with a thank you note. Or donate, and ask me not to upload a personal pic - whichever way works for you. Anything from a pound upwards and I'll send you a thank you. Try and catch me doing interesting things like debugging a script, grabbing my lunch or using the lift, because I lead quite a varied and exciting life like that. For kicks at somepoint today I'll be on my bike, but I'm not saying when. Whatever I'm doing I'll stop and upload. Requests considered too.

Having struggled through the post pubescent look, then the sex offender look, it's now looking more respectable, but only yesterday a mate said I look like a 'camp Larry Grayson and slightly off-putting'. Plain old Larry Grayson would have done it Rich!

It's for a good cause though, help me finish on a high!

£47 in the pot so far, with a few bits of cash to add. Come on folks.

http://mobro.co/olliephillips

Permalink | Leave a comment »

My Movember. It's for charity you know #in

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:33:00 -0800

No doubt you've all spotted people wandering round with suspicious looking facial hair this month - the month of Movember. It's a fund raising effort in aid of mens health charities for testicular and prostrate cancer and, unfortunately, I'm doing it too.

I'd like your support on this, so if you can sponsor me please visit my mospace page at http://mobro.co/olliephillips. You can give as little as a pound, and it will make the itching, smirks, suspicious stares, mothers crossing the street with their children and me generally wishing I hadn't got involved, just a little bit more bearable.

You can also just drop by and leave a comment on my mospace page (URI as above), though comments containing the words "village" and "people" will be automatically deleted ;-)

Thanks very much.

Ollie

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Tough lesson in Practice vs Theory

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:08:00 -0700

Bad day at the office today. Tomorrow will likely be the same. We've a server offline - has been for 18 hours and counting.

That server has RAID mirroring, daily backup to tape, and weekly backups to a remote NAS drive. None of which help much when you need your hosting company to act on your behalf.

After 5 hours trying to bring the server back up, it was written off. We'd get a new server. Bad but we've been here and can handle it. After 4 more hours of trying to provision a new server, still no server, couldn't be provisioned, "keeps falling over" - that's a first. Second line engineer will look at it in the morning. Good for him.

No matter. We'll restore the sites to another server or ours (if only temporarilly – load might be an issue). Please mount the recovered drive on server #####.

Drive mounted. Eh? no data on the drive. Well no files, all the directories we need but no files. Please mount the other raid drive on the server, it must be there? Nope – no files.

WTF? Suspects more than hardware failure at this point, but we're firewalled, we've no FTP service running and RDP is restricted on IP address.

Anyway, please restore the stuff we need from our tape please. Er that's also second line and they work sociable hours – be the morning. Good for "second line".

The hosting company involved is actually one of the good guys IMO, so I'm not going to lay into them. Stuff happens. But it's incredible how even tested DR procedures don't work quite as planned when you need to rely on them.

What would I do different next time? Well, I'd probably opt to be second-line myself for a start (since this is posted at 12.04am GMT)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Social Media - it's what your Peers make of it.

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:52:36 -0700

You simply can't deploy a "Social Media" strategy… In the end your customers, employees, peers, suppliers and "betters" will decide how they use social media for themselves, and most likely, your place in It. If you plan to take part and engage - you'll have to do it their way!

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Rackspace Cloud - A Firedrill

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:59:00 -0700

I mentioned this on Twitter last night, I thought I'd post up amore coherent summary of what happened and my thoughts.

Back in January 2011 I jumped on the UK Rackspace Cloud beta. It progressed through beta and now each month I send a few quid Rackspace's way for cloud server and cloud files services. It is a only a few quid too - their prices are pretty good.

Whilst I've been relying on cloud files for a few production sites, I've yet to do anything in production with a cloud server. Instead with the help of a good friend we've built, secured, optimised and documented a low end spec server specifically for Concrete5, a great CMS system. The spec may one day be the subject of another post, but suffice to say, I can spin up a virtual server (not really cloud) based on the 'special recipe' in minutes. And with the help of a few bash scripts can be installing Concrete5 and backing up to cloud files via Cron in no time.

We've had that done for nearly 2 months now – and still no production sites on a cloud server? Instead, I have just one test server live, which as well as load testing I've just left up – waiting.

Waiting for the inevitable - waiting for something to go wrong. Perhaps I'm overly cautious but before putting my clients' sites on a Rackspace cloud server, I needed a plan to recover things when it all goes wrong. I need to understand how I recover, what my options are, and that any previously planned actions are effective.

I needed a Firedrill.

Last night I got my Firedrill. A hardware failure on the machine hosting my virtual server. Here's what I learnt.

Rackspace's communication is great. They emailed me to let me know the server was down, when the a hardware swap had become necessary and when my server was back online. Automated emails of course but who cares.

I could have sat back and waited for the server to be moved to new hardware, but that's not a Firedrill. Instead I built a new server from a recent image (daily imaging highly recommended) and commissioned it in minutes. I tried to image the current server first so I could build from the latest state of my server, but that was never going to work.

CNames are worth the extra hop - end of story. The 10 test installations of Concrete5 were all back live with just one DNS A record amend.

At that point I had a new server up and all sites working. The only thing that had changed was the root password. In theory I could have left that server up and deleted the old one - accepting that in a production scenario we might have lost some customer updates. That image could have been up to 24 hours old.

But less that 3 1/2 hours later I got the last email, telling me the original server was back online. A single DNS amend again and all services were being hosted on the original (now moved) server. Maximum data loss 3 1/2 hours. In a production scenario communicating with customers, would probably mean no dataloss, only that Customers could not edit their sites for that time.

I know there are Rsync and load balancing options that could have reduced downtime further, but Concrete5 and my server config makes extensive use of caching, something which is inherently problematic in multiserver environments. I'm trying to keep it simple.

In conclusion, I'm impressed with Rackspace. That's the first downtime I've experience on Rackspace Cloud. I can't fault the communication – though It was have been nice if someone had picked up on my tweets which mentioned Rackspace (they have before). The server was recovered in an acceptable timeframe and I had a number of options for getting the sites back on line for the duration of the downtime.

Firedrill a success - will hopefully see the first production site on a cloud server in the near future.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Here's the real "I'm out"

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:38:00 -0700

"For no other reason than you don't appear to give a fuck (oops sorry f##k) - I'm out"

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Short, sweet.

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:10:00 -0700

That hashtag you latched onto, that hashed thing that represents your conference or event on twitter.... that same hashtag you promoted by tweeting it; your followers are now watching it.

Was that really what you meant to put out there?

Answer can be a "yes", "no" or "err that was disgraceful".

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Social Media. Nobody should set the rules for you.

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:01:00 -0700

It's happening. The rules of engagement for Social Media are crystalising and the etiquette is getting set. Like the early internet, social media, a platform with endless possibility, is slowly taking on a political correctness as it matures. Let's stop it.

Self proclaimed thought leaders, seeking influence, are trying to assert how we should use social media; they're telling us what makes a good or bad social strategy, when really no precedent exists. We're being advised to buy what they tell us, when in many cases what they're selling is just a point of view, and often not even their own.

I suppose any "thought leader" worth their salt presumably need's thought followers but it's incredible how many people seem happy to oblige - are you one of them?

Think about it. Why are the "dos and don'ts" the "dos and don'ts"? Why is "generally accepted practice", the "generally accepted practice"? Don't get me wrong, commonsense often dictates the best process for doing something or the most effective way to address a problem, but there's also another more sinister factor at play – perception.

Perception is more about belief than knowledge. Often it's perception that underpins the "dos and don'ts"; a culture; "the way we do things round here". It's your perception that our self titled thought leaders are looking to engage. You should resist; perception especially when false, imposes artificial barriers. Who needs those?

For me, you can't title yourself "thought leader", that's a badge others must pin on you, so be responsible about who you give the accolade to - others will use the signal. True leaders don't seek followers and they don't need to impose their belief system on you. They're getting on with something important, and they're doing it regardless of what you think or what you're doing.

So, if or when you jump into social media on a personal or business basis, take any advice you get given with a pinch of salt. Apply the acid test of "is that commonsense or just perception". Do what works for you, stop doing what doesn't. Ignore bullshit etiquette. Don't subscribe to beliefs instead seek fact. Call time on emperors who appear to be naked.

And you can start by ignoring me…

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Is it hard to be really horrid in 140 characters

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:21:00 -0700

There's SO much angst on the Net. It seems the chatroom "not accountable - not traceable" mentality of years back is now rife in Forum, Youtube & Blog comments. Why so? Why is it so easy to spin out the hate thing? I've no idea...

What does strike me as "odd" is how this mentality has not polluted Twitter in the same way.

I'm fairly sure I've rubbed people up the wrong way via tweet, knocked out a crappy late night tweet and indeed been on the receiving end of the same. But, no-one on Twitter is slating each other, certainly not to the same extent you see in the other channels mentioned previously. Why?

Do Twitter's unfollow and block mechanisms (some of which are present on the other platforms I mentioned above) work or, is it just hard to be horrid in 140 characters?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Otters and lots of them

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:40:00 -0700

Taken at Parc Du Reynou, a zoo near Limoge in France, these otters were great to watch. Watch what happens when a little boy (not one of mine) drops a drinks bottle in. Uploaded from my phone, not edited so apologies for camera work!

Parc Du Reynou

Permalink | Leave a comment »

ICO's Response On Cookies Disclosure Questions

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:04:00 -0700

Having deleted our company blog, on the basis that it sucked, I find myself without soapbox. Posterous to the rescue!

Most people have heard about the European Privacy Directive and the Cookies Disclosure required from 26 May 2011 (2012 in the UK). Well, back in May 2011 I wrote this:- http://cookiesdirective.com, a free javascript solution that provides for disclosure of cookies on a website as well as preventing the execution of client side cookie creating scripts, until that permission has been given. I wrote it for websites that I support, but put it out there "open source" because based on experience, I just know some people are going to try and make a 'fast buck' out of this, at others' expense. Think audits, think consultancy....

At about the same time, I sent an email to the ICO, requesting some clarification on points below:-

Would the cookies set by a CMS for the purposes of session and login management qualify as 'necessary'

Am I correct in my thinking that 'necessary' cookies are exempt from the requirement to disclose their use and gain consent for their use.

We use a CMS system for many of our websites, it will be very diffcult to intercept cookies and prevent them being set on first page load BEFORE the opt in message is displayed. Is it sufficient to set them, but provide full disclosure. Must we delete them as well?

Today, I received a rather detailed reply which helps to a degree, but still leaves much room for interpretation. I've posted the content of that reply below for any other businesses and web developers struggling to understand the leglisation and what they need to do about it. Having read it, I'm fairly happy that the approach I took in the cookiesDirective.js script, is valid and will be useful to many. Hope it helps.

Response from ICO

"Dear Mr Phillips

Thank you for your correspondence concerning the new Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.

Broadly speaking, the new rule on cookies is that consent is required for the use of cookies. There is one exception to this rule ˆ being where the cookie is strictly necessary to carry out a service requested by the user. You can find out more about this rule and its application on our website at: Read the ICO‚s advice to organisations about how to prepare for the new rules on cookies. This guidance also refers to the situation which arises a website‚s cookies are set by third parties (see page 9 of the guidance).

It my understanding that no differentiation between cookies on the basis of their duration is made in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) as amended. Therefore it is our guidance that cookies need to be consented to irrespective of their temporary nature, unless the requirements of the Œstrictly necessary‚ exception are fulfilled.

As there is no exception specifically for Œlogin‚ cookies, whether or not a login cookie is excepted from the basic consent rule will depend on whether that cookie falls within the Œstrictly necessary‚ exception. There is not a straightforward or catch-all answer to whether a Œlogin‚ cookie will be Œstrictly necessary‚.

What will be crucial in deciding whether a login cookie fits within the narrow exception of being Œstrictly necessary‚ is whether the use of that login cookie is essential for a service requested by the user. It is essential that both parts of the exception are met ˆ that it is a service the user has requested, and that the cookie itself is strictly necessary to that service. (Our guidance on this point, as you have no doubt already seen, is available on our website: Read the ICO‚s advice to organisations about how to prepare for the new rules on cookies).

In some circumstances it may be that a login cookie falls within the Œstrictly necessary‚ exception ˆ in others it will not. We have not provided more detailed examples regarding login cookies as it really will depend upon an individual website‚s specific circumstances as to whether the requirements of the exception are met. I can see a situation where it might potentially be argued that a login cookie is strictly necessary if a user has asked to login to a site to access certain information and a cookie is integral to that login or authentication process. Alternatively, if the login is being imposed on the user for the purposes of the website operator, or if the use of a cookie is not strictly necessary to that login or authentication process then the requisite criteria of the narrow exception are extremely unlikely to be met.

Looking to the examples which you are requesting, whether consent will be needed in each case will depend upon whether the login cookie in question is strictly necessary for a service requested by the user. Where the criteria of the exception are not met, and consent is needed, the nature of that consent will depend in part upon the function(s) which the cookie in question is to carry out. As you will see from our guidance, the more privacy intrusive a cookie activity is, the more important it will be to obtain meaningful consent.

The definition of Œconsent‚ is given in Directive 95/46/EC ˆ the Data Protection Directive (which you can access online at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:en:HTML, consent is defined in article 2(h)) ˆ as being:

∑any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes∑

Whilst the fundamental definition of Œconsent‚ will not change, as mentioned above, the level of information provided to obtain consent and the way in which consent is obtained may differ considerably depending on the privacy intrusion represented by the cookie activity in question. There is therefore very definitely not one Œcatch all‚ solution to cookie consent.

You can find out more about consent on our website at: www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/conditions_for_pro... (scroll down to the heading Œconsent‚).

Finally, with regards your javascript software located at www.cookiesdirective.com - the ICO cannot approve or endorse any individual piece of software at this stage however the information you have provided will be kept on record.

I hope this information is helpful. If we can be of any further assistance please contact our Helpline on 0303 123 1113 quoting your case reference number. You may also find some useful information on our website at www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Name deleted
Case Officer
Information Commissioner's Office"

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Jake does donuts with his remote control car

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 05:03:15 -0700

20100930_010.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Ron Haslam Race School - 16/09/10

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:57:00 -0700

Photo by: Keith Martin Photography.

A photo of me at Ron Haslam Race School, Silverstone, on the Premier course. Think this was taken during my second session in the chicane at Vale.

Had a great afternoon – very lucky with the weather, given it’s rained hard in the days before and now after. Only 45 minutes on track over 3 sessions – which flys and goes really slow at the same time!! But you go to Ron Haslams Race School for the tuition as much as the track time. Instructors on and off track are experienced riders/racers, and following them helps a lot.

My instructors on the day were Mark to start with and then Justin. I had to change as I was partnered with some chap who had done the same school a few weeks earlier and he didn’t appreciate being paired with someone who hadn’t and was going up the learning curve. As Apple would say – there’s an Elite course for that, not sure what he expected to gain doing the Premier again. Turned out well for me though, since I got one-to-one tuition as a result – it’s normally one instructor to two pupils.

I saw Ron Haslam twice, once teaching the youngsters on the “car park”, and then again approaching Vale under braking; I’d just put the bike into first gear when I thought it was second. He rode past at speed with a pillion on a Fireblade, as the back end of my bike shimmied all over the place despite the slipper clutch. Not sure that would have impressed him much.

I scored 70% and the instructors were “kind” to me in their reports. To be fair, I made some good progress during the day, mainly confidence in high speed cornering – you can’t put a bike over like that on the roads (well not if you have all your faculties intact you can’t).

Oh, and Dev off Coronation Street was in my group - I think he was faster than me too!

There’s a lot more I can get from that course so I’m saving the pennies for another visit.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Is it a competition winner?

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:07:25 -0700

We'll find out this afternoon.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Another link: Swedish House Mafia, Creamfields 2010

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:37:19 -0700

Found another link to this, since its no longer on Iplayer: Swedish House Mafia, Creamfields 2010.

http://soundcloud.com/officialswedishhousemafia/radio-1-essential-mix-swedish-house-mafia-live-at-creamfields-2010

Will not find it again so whacking it up to posterous – job done.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Cheltenham 2010!!

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:42:04 -0700

In the frog & fiddle. 21 years of reunions and down to 3 - the best 3 though.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Why men shouldn't write advice columns

Sat, 29 May 2010 14:41:36 -0700

A friend forwarded this to me by email, made me laugh.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Inspired Carlsberg advert - England Team Talk

Fri, 14 May 2010 16:53:09 -0700

If you aren’t quite “worldcup ready” then check the new Carlsberg advert out, it WILL get you in the mood.

Crammed with England’s sporting legends, you’ll need to watch a few times to spot them all, and a real goose bump inducer. Epic…

Come on England!

Permalink | Leave a comment »

New Norton

Sun, 09 May 2010 09:24:51 -0700

Pricey at just under £14k

Permalink | Leave a comment »