For you mobile geeks out there HP Home currently has 3-cell batteries for the HP Mini 1000 and 110 on sale for 60% off as well as a $15-off coupon you can use (ACY93421). No idea how long this is going to last.

• HP 3-cell Battery for Mini 110 Series (BX03) (NY221AA#UUF)
• HP 3-cell Primary Battery for Mini 1000 Series (HA03) (FZ441AA#UUF)

The 6-cell batteries are regular price but the coupon should also work.

• HP 6-cell Extended-Life Battery for Mini 110 Series (BX06) (NY220AA#ABA)
• HP 6-cell Extended-Life Battery for Mini 1000 Series (HA06) (FZ332AA#ABB)

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/minami/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Short of a server going down, one of the quickest and most effective ways for a Blog to die is for it to drop out of search engines. Sure, you might have a ton of repeat visitors, but no search ranking means no new visitors because, well, no one can find you. What a blinding flash of the obvious.

So what’s the best way to drop a Blog out of search engines? Add User-agent: * Disallow: / to robots.txt. And who would be stupid enough to do that?

How to murder a Blog

Me.

During a server upgrade a few years ago I ran a script to automatically update the code on all of my sites. It just so happened that the script was based on my new site install script which included the above robots.txt line to prevent staging sites from getting indexed before their launch.

So, you guessed it, it took me just long enough to notice my FUBAR that Inert Ramblings had effectively disappeared off the Net over the course of two weeks. Unfortunately, recovery wasn’t as simple as just restoring the original robots.txt and the site instantly reappearing; it still took months for Google and other search engines to reindex the entire site and for traffic to pick back up.

Is there a moral to the story (other than pointing and laughing at me)? Sure. Be absolutely certain that none of your maintenance scripts make unexpected changes to robots.txt or any other config file. Luckily only one site was effected in the long-term but it could have been much worse had it taken longer for me to notice.

If you have a mixed bag of Polycom kit in your office, be sure to check out the VoIP SIP Software Release Matrix to check on compatible versions. In our case, I chose SIP version 3.1.3RevC since it’s compatible with both the IP 430 and the IP 4000. I’ll probably bump up to SIP version 3.2.0 for the IP 430; just not today.

Also pay special attention to the release notes. Just because a Firmware version is on the download page for a particular model doesn’t mean it will work. We had to mix and match with Firmware version 4.1.3 for the IP 4000 and 4.2.0 for the IP 430. This is difficult (but not impossible) since pre-4.0 Firmware versions look for bootrom.ld instead of modelnumber.bootrom.ld in 4.0 and higher versions.

The solution was simple; I dropped the following files into place:

• IP 430 4.2.0 Bootrom (Split) 2345-11402-001.bootrom.ld
• IP 430 3.1.3RevC SIP (Split) 2345-11402-001.sip.ld
• IP 4000 4.1.3 Bootrom (Split) 2201-06642-001.bootrom.ld
• IP 4000 3.1.3RevC SIP (Split) 2201-06642-001.sip.ld
• Generic 4.1.3 Bootrom (Combined) bootrom.ld

This way both the IP 430 and the IP 4000 will properly flash themselves with the 4.1.3 Combined image, then the IP 430 will step up to the 4.2.0 Split image on its next reboot.

For even more fun, the new macaddress.cfg files support per-model config files, so I also created phone1-3.1.3C.cfg and sip-3.1.3C.cfg to selectively upgrade a few phones for testing.

Oh, and remember to move bootrom.ld out of the way if you only want to test upgrade a few phones you’ve pre-modified config files for. You really don’t want to brick your whole office, do you?

No problem. ServerBeach provides a brilliant tool called RapidRescue that allows you to reboot your server into a Linux recovery session and gives remote console access to the disks and hardware. I whipped together an awful hack to take advantage of this tool and automate the process of formatting the hard drives and debootstrapping an Ubuntu install. Not exactly elegant, but it gets the job done.

• Totally unsupported Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) installer for ServerBeach RapidRescue

Required Tools

• Unofficial MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy
  
• Official Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics version CW1337A0 17-Jul-2008

Caveats

• Windows is required to run both installers. I have not tested under Wine or emulation.
• The unofficial MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy comes from BootDisk.com and not from Microsoft.
• The official Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics utility comes directly from Dell but AUTOEXEC.BAT must be modified for use on a non-Dell system. The info page for version CW1337A0 is available from Dell Support and additional versions are available directly from the Dell Diagnostics Repository.
• Some prototype netbooks and MID devices refuse to boot MS-DOS. You’re on your own.
• These tools are not licensed for redistribution.
• These tools will erase the destination floppy disk or USB thumbdrive before creating bootable media.

MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy

1. Attach a USB floppy drive and execute BOOT622.EXE.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to write image to the floppy disk.
3. Remove unneeded files to free up space and copy your custom BIOS image and BIOS flash utilities to the floppy disk.
4. Upon booting, the floppy disk will be drive A:.

Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics

1. Execute CW1337A0.EXE to extract archive contents to a folder.
2. Execute DDDP.EXE and insert a USB thumbdrive.
3. Select Install to a USB Flash Drive.
4. Select the USB Flash Drive to use and click OK.
5. If the USB thumbdrive is too large then a warning will be displayed regarding the maximum size of FAT 16 partitions; click Yes to continue.
6. Click OK when complete then select Finished Creating Diagnostic Media.
7. Modify AUTOEXEC.BAT on the newly-created USB thumbdrive and REM out or delete the DELLDIAG.COM and REBOOT.COM lines at the end of the script. DELLDIAG.COM will only run on approved Dell systems so by default the tool will give an error, exit, and reboot non-Dell systems.
8. Copy your custom BIOS image and BIOS flash utilities to the USB thumbdrive.
9. Upon booting, the USB thumbdrive will be drive C: and the Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics RAMDISK will be drive D:.

Booting Devices

Booting your device should be as simple as simple as Plug and Play; make sure the boot order is configured to see the USB thumbdrive, USB floppy disk, or internal floppy disk before the hard drive. Once MS-DOS loads follow the instructions that came with your BIOS image or BIOS flash utility.

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