Sometimes it helps if you don’t RTFM…

My Belkin wireless card contains a Ralink 2500 chip, and if you read certain pieces of documentation on the Internet, the ra2500 kernel module doesn’t work on an SMP machine without locking up or going weird.

Quote: commands

hex ~ # lspci|grep RaLink 02:00.0 Network controller: RaLink Ralink RT2500 802.11 Cardbus Reference Card (rev 01) hex ~ # lsmod | grep rt2500 rt2500 160612 1 hex ~ # uname -a Linux hex 2.6.16-gentoo-r1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 31 01:17:35 GMT 2006 i686 Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Whatever…

It seems to associate better with the network here too. There’s less arsing around trying to find a network. In fact, I don’t have to do anything, it just either works or doesn’t. Manual intervention beyond shuffling the laptop around the floor to find a better signal isn’t required.

New site’s release will be delayed, I need to add categories or tags to my diary entries, it’d make sense.

Haha! I’ve managed to get my laptop and DS working together sufficiently well enough to send the Brain Training demo to my DS.

This has two benefits…

1. It means I have another “game” I want to buy
2. It’ll make developing stuff on my DS somewhat easier

And all I had to do was install the rt2500 kernel driver (despite people telling me it doesn’t work with PCMCIA cards or with an SMP kernel… it does) and then run the wmb program from here: http://masscat.afraid.org/ninds/wifi_apps.php

After one false start caused by pilot error (I specified the wrong network interface) my DS sprang into life and happily informed me there was a game to download.

Now I need to make devkit pro work in Linux rather than Windows.

My laptop is having problems associating with our wireless network:

Trying to associate with 00:12:bf:02:f0:d7 (SSID='Newlands' freq=2462 MHz)
Associated with 00:12:bf:02:f0:d7
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:12:bf:02:f0:d7 [PTK=TKIP GTK=TKIP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:12:bf:02:f0:d7 completed (auth)
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
Associated with 00:12:bf:02:f0:d7
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys

And repeat…

If I so much as think about the little green LEDs on my wireless network card the card loses the network. It’s like it waits for me to do something and then disconnects. It sat here quite happily while I went and watched War of the Worlds fetching me some email, then as soon as I sat down it started acting strange.

Now it just thinks my WPA preshared key is wrong, which is complete nonsense.

Give me wires any day.

The wasps are out, there’s loads of the stripy buggers flying around. They keep coming in my room for some reason.

Wow, it’s a bit of a shock to the system this training stuff. After spending the winter standing up and occasionally dangling off Keswick climbing wall it’s a big change working here again. Either we’re scrambling around crags or up in trees at the high ropes course, or we’re being flushed down the ghyll on our backsides. I know how to do all of this, so my main function in the training was to be a guinea pig to “demonstrate” what to do.

I have to admit I did derive a small amount of pleasure watching the new people having their first dip in the ghyll The weather is warming up so there’s now a noticeable temperature difference between ghyll water and the air. I don’t know what’s going on with my fingers and toes, but after just a few minutes of being in cold water they go totally white and numb. The rest of me can be perfectly warm but my hands and feet just shut down. Normally if there’s warmth in your body it flows out to the extremities and everything stays warm. Some neoprene socks help, but after three hours of submersion I’m back to walking on blocks of ice.

It’s really strange when things thaw out too. The soft bits of my feet recover quite quickly, but the soles take a long time, so long that they can be numb and it feels like I’m walking on three blobs of rubber. Presumably this is because the inside of my feet can feel the soles pressing on them, rather than the whole thing working together. I hope the summer is warm, I’m done with feeling cold.

There’s some nasty flu-like thing going around at the moment. It’s been through three of us and I think it’s currently trying to make a home in my tonsils. I’ve got a slightly sore throat and feel quite tired. Then again it could just be a normal cold, and the tiredness could be from the past two weeks.

Went bouldering at the Bowderstone last night. I need to find some finger strength from somewhere as I know where to put my hands, I just can’t make them stay there.

Oh, and I finally managed to get the Wifi password this place has enabled. If it’s still working I’ll put these entries online. WPA is quite temperamental at best.

The wireless base station at home has died. I think it’s PSU has conked out, but my dad tried plugging another PSU in with the same voltage and nothing much happened. Think I’m going to have to buy another base unit, which is a bit irritating.

Today I was going to go and do some climbing in Buttermere, but once over the pass Buttermere was looking all misty and not very nice at all. It was one of those decisions where it might have been OK, but then again it might not. We decided it was too much effort to walk up the hillside to get to the crag and went off to Keswick to wander round the shops instead. This turned out to be a wise move since it’s now raining. Hill walking in rain is bad enough, climbing in the rain is just awful.

Getting online is expensive! I can go into town to the library and pay �1 for half an hour, put a wireless card in my laptop and pay �5 an hour(!) or use my GPRS connection and pay �2 for every meg of data I consume. It seems to end up cheaper if I just use my phone instead of going into town, which is backwards and stupid.