The big breakdown

The breakdown. After 9 years of almost uninterrupted operation, my Raspberry Pi broke down. It is a capacitor which finally burned. I think the site was down for several weeks, but I restarted it after fixing it. The 418 Error is back online!

How to replace line breaks with paragraph breaks in Libreoffice?

Here's the answer a an unusual technical question: In LibreOffice Writer, how to replace all the line breaks (seized with the combination of keys SHIFT + ENTER) with paragraph breaks (seized with the Enter key)?

It's simple but totally counter-intuitive. I decided to share my find here to find it later and so It can benefits to everybody.

•Run the find window (Ctrl + h)
•Check the regular expression checkbox
•in the search field and enter \n
•in the replace field, type \n
•click Replace all



It isn't a troll, replace \n with \n ... and it works...

Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones

I test Windows 10 for PC since weeks, but I had no device available to test the phone version. As I just changed my Lumia Lumia 625 for a Lumia 1320, I could not wait to test Windows 10 on the Lumia 625.
How to install it:

• First, you need a compatible smartphone: http://windows.microsoft.com/fr-fr/windows/preview-supported-phones
•  I recommend using a different phone than your primary phone because the system is not yet stable.
•  Register your Microsoft account in the program "Windows Insider" here: https://insider.windows.com/
•  Download "Windows Insider" application from the store or here: http://windows.microsoft.com/fr-fr/windows/preview-download-phone
•   Run "Windows Insider" application . Two operating modes are available for this application: Slow = more or less stable version or Fast = latest version with more bugs. For my Lumia 625 only the Fast option is working.
• Then go to the Update menu "Settings / Phone Update /check availability of updates"
• Install the update
• The phone reboots by installing the update.

Note that this is an update and not a complete reinstallation. The parameters and programs should normally be preserved. Unfortunately, in my case, the main menu was totally unstable. I was able to make it usable by resetting from the menu "Settings / System / About / Reset your phone." It then was reinstalled with a clean system while remaining in Windows 10.
 
Honestly, this system does not upset much compared to Windows 8.1. The most notable changes i see are in the settings menu that sound much more orderly and understandable than the old.

Windows 10 Technical Preview for PC

My transition from Android to Windows Phone 8.1 made me appreciate the value of  Microsoft Windows 8.1. The "modern UI" tile interface, which seemed ridiculous to me at first sight, became relevant after passing through the touch.

That is why I am following with interest the development of Windows 10. I am particularly excited about the GUI halfway between Windows 7 and Windows 8, the new Edge Browser (formerly Project Spartan) and the Windows Universal Apps, compatible for smartphone and PC.

The final version should be free for upgrade from Windows 7 and Windows 8, but it's not because it's free that you should not try before you install!

To download the ISO of the DVD to install the latest version Technical Preview is here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/fr-fr/windows/preview-iso-update-1504

It still has bugs, so install rather on a test machine or virtual machine. I used it on an old PC with core2duo, and it's still pretty responsive.

Come back of the 418 teapot

Hello,

  My teapot and I were away from the web for several long weeks . I am totally overwhelmed and would have difficulty writing articles soon, but I still managed to find some time to reconnect the teapot.

 

See you soon.

HTCPCP extension: HTCPCP-TEA

An extension of HTCPCP protocol was published this week on IETF website. This new protocol is published in RFC 7168: "The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol for Tea Appliances Efflux" (HTCPCP-TEA).  

This New RFC is available here: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7168

The purpose of this extension is to allow service of tea. I do not approve this update at all. For me it is a sacrilege... especially in the morning. 

The teapot at www.error418.net is not yet compatible with the new protocol HTCPCP-TEA and will continue to issue 418 error. 

This new protocol can nevertheless be useful at five o'clock. An update of the teapot to make it compatible with the new protocol may be considered in the future.

One year of raspberry Pi power consumption

Oh my god! I missed my english version teapot anniversary post.

Power consumption was 1,7 kWh for december (and january and february)
.
Total power comsuption of the past year was 20,4 kWh.

I still have problem with my DNS, but i'm working on a new script

The return to a more reliable service has enabled 1,647 unique visitor went on the teapot on december, 2920 on january but only 502 on february beacause of big downtime issues.

The beginning of the year is also the time for accounting balance sheets, and here are the figures of the number of visits to different sites on the teapot.

	error418.org blog	error418.fr blog	error418.net teapot
January	366	394	867
February	448	347	945
March	635	369	1556
April	693	565	1384
May	833	765	1732
June	779	917	1272
July	786	1345	2473
August	644	617	1376
September	667	524	782
October	735	456	677
November	623	605	1537
Décember	648	1562	1647

For year 2014, I will continue to update my blogs with news about the teapot, but also other subjects. I renewed all my domains except 418error.net.

Fun with logs - Geeks

As promised, here is a small tribute to the geeks visiting the teapot!

The best query are received by me are those two. With HTCPCP protocol, url "coffee", BREW and PROPFIND methods and even a pot-designator!

In fact, I received  few comments, but the traces in the logs  attest to the visits of some purists  for the integration of HTCPCP.

So I must begin by apologizing. My implementation of HTCPCP protocol is probably not up to your expectations..

X.X.X.X - - [14/Mar/2013:15:40:12 +0000] "HTCPCP/1.0 coffee://error418.net/pot-1/ PROPFIND" 501 357 "-" "-"
X.X.X.X  - - [14/Mar/2013:15:42:00 +0000] "BREW coffee://error418.net/pot-1/ HTCPCP/1.0" 501 357 "-" "-"

There is occasionally some attempts to address the BREW method:
X.X.X.X - - [13/Mar/2013:20:19:34 +0000] "BREW / HTTP/1.1" 501 357 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X - - [06/Mar/2013:22:09:27 +0000] "BREW" 400 349 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X - - [17/Oct/2013:11:01:18 +0200] "BREW / HTTP/1.1" 501 357 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X - - [29/Jan/2013:18:28:54 +0000] "BREW / HTTP/1.0" 501 357 "-" "-"


Some uses of HTCPCP instead of HTTP
X.X.X.X - - [20/Nov/2013:17:44:33 +0100] "GET HTCPCP/1.1" 400 349 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X - - [24/Oct/2013:18:47:43 +0200] "BREW / HTCPCP/1.0" 501 357 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X - - [24/Nov/2013:21:38:15 +0100] "BREW coffee HTCPCP/1.0" 501 357 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X  - - [14/Mar/2013:15:40:54 +0000] "HTCPCP/1.0 pot-1 BREW" 501 357 "-" "-"

X.X.X.X  - - [14/Mar/2013:15:41:33 +0000] "BREW pot-1 HTCPCP/1.0" 501 357 "-" "-"


The POST method is also provided
X.X.X.X www.htcpcp.net - [02/Feb/2013:01:58:48 +0000] "POST / HTTP/1.1" 200 1371 "-" "curl/7.28.1"


Some PROPFIND requests
X.X.X.X error418.net - [17/Oct/2013:11:01:26 +0200] "PROPFIND / HTTP/1.1" 418 1370 "-" "curl/7.29.0"

X.X.X.X www.htcpcp.net - [13/Dec/2013:00:52:08 +0100] "GET /propfind HTTP/1.1" 404 345 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36"

A attempts cream parameter
X.X.X.X error418.net - [19/Mar/2013:18:29:03 +0000] "GET /BREW%20pot-1?cream;2 HTTP/1.1" 404 345 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_2) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.172 Safari/537.22"

I would really like to tweak a nicer implementation HTCPCP. I have some ideas, but unfortunately not enough time to implement them a the moment. Modifying an open source HTTP server is the track that seems to me the easiest way to be able to support non-HTTP requests, and return a 418 error as expected for BREW HTCPCP an PRODFIN METHOD.

Changing Litecoin into money

You may have noticed that cryptocurrencies went crazy in last weeks , with a Bitcoin to over $ 1000 .

I think it's too late to start Bitcoin mining , and even Litecoin. However I mined a few Litecoin there some time, and I wondered how exchange them now .

I looked for sites to do it, and I decided to share the adresses I tested and have worked for me.

DISCLAIMER: WITH BITCOINS EVERYTHING IS TOO FAST. A RELIABLE SITE ONE DAY MAY BANKRUPTCY NEXT DAY .

First step , mine the Litecoin :
I think it is not worth mining now given the current difficulty, but for your information , I have mined my Litecoin with the following two pool which are still active :
https://litecoinrain.org/en/: a small PPLNS pool
https://www.coinotron.com/ : a big PPS pool

Changing Litecoin into Bitcoin.
There are many exchange market. I tested and received my Bitcoin with following sites:
https://btc-e.com/:
https://vircurex.com/:

For my transfer, I didn't wanted to use the site systems to make transfers to a bank, because I do not want to give my bank details. So I transferred my bitcoins on my computer, and I tried find a Bitcoin site paying through PayPal.

Transforming Bitcoins currency :
The site I found can buy very small amounts of Bitcoins and paid them on Paypal account.
It is https://coin2pal.info/, where I sold 0.06 BTC for 41$ in November.

I do not know how much was lost in fees made ​​by each of these intermediates, but at least I got something.

Raspberry Pi power consumption - eleventh month

Power consumption is 1,6 kWh for november, without any surprise.
Total power comsuption since the begining of the year is 18,7 kWh.

I had some problems with the automatic change of IP address with my provider,Orange. But I now have a stable script that works to manage IP changes with OVH dynhost Service.

I still have some short downtime, but nothing serious, since my uptime is 99.88%.

The return to a more reliable service has enabled 1,537 users to visit the teapot in November.

crédit photo: Par Benjamin Stäudinger (Lightning #3  Uploaded by ComputerHotline) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Raspberry Pi power consumption - tenth month

Power consuption for october is still 1,6 kWh.
Total consumption since the beginning of the year is 17.1 kWh.

UptimeRobot working properly, but my I lost my stats.

I still have problems with my IP address, but I'm trying to find a solution using the OVH dynhost service and a script on the Raspberry Pi


With all these downtimes only 677 unique visitors went on the teapot in October.

crédit photo: By US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (upload fr:Utilisateur:Cham) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Raspberry pi power consumption - 9 month

Sorry for the lack of interesting updates for last weeks.

My ISP migration wasn't very good. I had downtime problems and my IP adress isn't stable.

Power consumption is stable again  with 1,6 kWh for september. The total consumption since the beginning of the year was 15,5 kWh.

UptimeRobot didn't send me any error messages, i'll check for any configuration changes to do.

823 unique visitors. The impact of my downtime will be visible again in october.

crédit photo: Axel Rouvin, via Wikimedia Commons

Changing of ISP

I planned to change my ISP again next week to switch from SFR to ORANGE. My connection will remain optical fiber. Network downtime may occurs during the change.

Raspberry Pi power consumption - eigth month

Power consumption stable for August with 1,6 kWh. The total consumption since the beginning of the year was 13,9 kWh.

Uptime is  now 99,88%.

1376 unique visitors. No more big buzz like last month.

crédit photo: By longhorndave (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidw/171030064/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The influence of the social networks

Following the increase of visitors last month, I wanted to know why in my Google Analytics page.

Here is counting the number of unique visitors to my sites:

period	htcpcp.net	error418.org english blog	error418.fr french blog
October 2012	0	7	14
November 2012	710	271	224
December 2012	522	248	249
January 2013	867	366	394
February 2013	945	448	347
March 2013	1556	635	369
April 2013	1384	693	565
May 2013	1732	833	765
June 2013	1272	779	917
July 2013	2473	786	1345

In fact, the reason of the almost doubling of the number of visits is only a huge spike of visits on July 29 and 30.

After research, the cause of this peak is a comment posted by someone on reddit.

The effect of this quote in a comment made me really impressed about the power of social networks. What would have been the effect of a post instead of a simple comment?

Nevertheless we see that this increase is very short. Two days after the traffic is back to normal. However, I now understand better why some public personalities are so active on social networks... and the ephemeral side of the buzz effects.

Here is the visits coming from Google Analytics identified social networks.

There are a few I did not even heard about. Maybe should I open accounts for the teapot on social networks?

Raspberry Pi power consumption - seventh month

A short post for the power consumption after 7 months.

The power consumption for July was 1,6 kWh, the same as June. The total consumption since the begining of the year was 12,3 kWh.

Uptime is  now 99,82%.

2,458 unique visitors were on the teapot in July. This is much more than other months, so I'll check my Google Analytics to understand why.

crédit photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Edward Aspera Jr. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Leap Motion - One week test

I have tested my Leap Motion for a week and I give you my review of the product.

First sight, the product gives an feeling of quality. The power supply is via the USB cable, but it is not plug-and-play. It is indeed necessary to download and install the drivers and software (no CD provided)

The "Airspace Home" application is installed with the drivers. It centralizes all the compatible applications installed and is an access point to the app store.

The first application is installed "Leap Motion Visaliser" which allows you to view what the Leap Motion captures. This application is not a big deal, it is for test equipment and grandstanding but still allows to understand the limits of perception of the device. You can experiment that the Leap Motion can detect both hands, but should not run a hand over the other.

A look on the "Leap Airspace Store" to download additional software. At this moment there are only 60 applications for Windows.

The games are funny, but not for hours of play. But there is the most necessary, an application to control  Windows "Touchless For Windows".

Control with the fingers takes time getting started, but after a week of use, I sometimes chose my Leap Motion for some basic actions like clicks on icons or scrolling on web pages. It is also a pretty cool way to play simple games like card games.

The first thing to understand is that the Leap Motion detection and positioning are relative. You doesn't directly point the your target icon with your finger but you move a pointer trying to track your movements.

In this mode of operation, it is clearly much less precise than a mouse, but you can not compare mastery of a tool used for years with a new one. There is at least one advantage to this relative positioning: the size, definition and even the location of the screen are unimportant. You can also easily use a double screen, or ask the software to work only on a screen.

Over use, I found a few tricks to improve the use of this software with Windows:

Enable opening files with a single click. (double click is possible, but is almost impossible without adjusting the double-click speed to the slowest).

To activate the click: Control Panel> Folder Options> Single Click to open an item(point to select)

To change the double-click speed: Control Panel> Mouse> Double-click speed

Enable touch-friendly settings for Chrome
enter chrome://flags in Chrome's address bar

The two options I chosed are:

• Enable touch events.
• Touch Optimized UI

Like other users I found that the unit is hot. I measured an temperature of 40°C in the hottest spots with a temperature in the room of 24°C.

I also found that there is a big problem with the ergonomics suggestions. Leap Motion suggest to place the unit in front of the keyboad.
In this position I often move my mouse cursor or worse to operate a simple click through above the Leap to access my keyboard.It is really annoying.

My observation is that the Leap Motion should be put behind the keyboard. It needs to have enough room to put the the Leap not too close to the screen and have a keyboard flat enough not to hidde the vision of the Leap. In short, the ideal position is not easy to find.

I'm also skeptical about the use with Windows 8 interface. Windows 8 interface requires going on thecorners, and these are just the parts that I find most difficult to target.


In conclusion: the product requires time to grip and need a bigger software library and an deeper OS integration. Plugins to improve care of the Internet browsers would also be usefull.

Leap Motion Unboxing

My first off topic post: Leap Motion.

For those who never have heard about, it is a revolutionary human-machine interface supposed to allow controls like in "Minority Report" (the movie, not the K. Dick novel).

I pre-ordered some time ago and got it today. I just tested again, and the usage is not obvious. While waiting for a more complete review of the product, I share here's my unbowing session.

Coming from a Fedex envelope Fedex from Czech Republic (shipped 07-24, received 07-29)

Protected by a thin layer of foam.

Here is the Leap boxe:

A word just pretentious "Welcome to a whole new world". It specifies the URL where to download the software and drivers (no CD in the box).

The Leap Motion itself, with a sticker to remind the URL.

Two USB cables below (one 50cm and 150cm)

Leap Motion connected (does not work if the sticker is left)

No time to say more tonight. I'll test, and I post again.

Fun with logs: crawling robots

After studying the "human" visits logs of my log, I have checked the visits done by bots identifiable by their userAgent ... And we can say they are legion.

The major search engines are of course present.

Google

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

Bing (Microsoft)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)"

and another Microsoft bot for Msn
"msnbot-media/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"

Yahoo! (I thought they used the Bing search engine ?)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)"
"Yahoo! Slurp China"

But also some lesser known engines:

Exalead (French)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Exabot/3.0; +http://www.exabot.com/go/robot)"

Voilà (French)

"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.8.1) VoilaBot BETA 1.2 (support.voilabot@orange-ftgroup.com)"

Yacy (a free and decentralized search engine I discovered thanks to my logs)

"yacybot (webportal-global; amd64 Linux 3.6.10-nrj-desktop-1rosa; java 1.7.0_b147-icedtea; Europe/fr) http://yacy.net/bot.html"


Baidu (Chinese)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)"

Jike (Chinese)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; JikeSpider; +http://shoulu.jike.com/spider.html)"

Yandex (Russian)

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)"
"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)"

Blekko



"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Blekkobot; ScoutJet; +http://blekko.com/about/blekkobot)"

gimme60





"gimme60 (Gimme60 Store ID Bot; gimme60.com)"


In addition to these search engines, there are also extractors bots data whose activities are less visible on the Internet.

alexa.com (Ranking site)

"ia_archiver (+http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters; crawler@alexa.com)"

a Twitter bot

"Twitterbot/1.0"

A site using Twitter

"Twitmunin Crawler http://www.twitmunin.com"

And many societies which collect and cross data to sale them to their customers
80legs

http://www.80legs.com/webcrawler.html;) Gecko/2008032620"


panscient

"panscient.com"

Netcraft

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NetcraftSurveyAgent/1.0; +info@netcraft.com)"

ahrefs

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/4.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/)"


gnip

"UnwindFetchor/1.0 (+http://www.gnip.com/)"

Topsy

"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Butterfly/1.0; +http://labs.topsy.com/butterfly/) Gecko/2009032608 Firefox/3.0.8"




And a few small bots that I was not able to know the role
"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Ezooms/1.0; ezooms.bot@gmail.com)"
"Web front page analyser. robots.txt complaint (norw.acd.inst@gmail.com)"

Next time I'll talk about traces left by geeks on the teapot log!