AnthonyKinson.co.uk

The weekend just gone has been absolutely unbelievable, so many problems with company’s trying to over charge me for things.

First of all, our data center, we ordered are new server, which was supposed to take 24 hours to get provisioned, and now being more than 48 hours later i am told that it has not been setup because of an outstanding invoice. Thing is, we have no outstanding invoices, and telling them this we are told over and over again to email there system admin’s and so on, which just results in us having to repeat everything over and over and sitting around for hours waiting for email responses. We just this minute however asked to speak to a manager, who was very helpful indeed, he had already reviewed the situation and had the whole thing resolved in a minute or two. still, 3 days of messing around.

Next on the list is Rapidshare, somehow my Rapidshare “Rapidpoints” had been stolen, and used to order a new Rapidshare account, when i checked the logs it appears that a server in Chicago was responsible for redeeming / stealing my points. Now, they responded to me informing me a phishing websites, which is what i would expect them to do, fact is, i use a download manager to download, so my login information is never entered manually into any website, and when i login to my premium zone, i manually type in the Rapidshare URL, so i know that I’m entering them into the correct site. again, i reported this on Saturday, and i only just got my points back today.

Third and finally is o2, after my recent article about the £655 phone bill a lady on the phone told me that i would not have to pay a bill this month and that it will be sorted out for me, however, checking my bill i notice i still have a £655 phone bill, which is not a good sign, and in my experience, things are never resolved as easy as they first appear to be, so its probably going to result in more phone calls to o2, more explaining of the situation and more frustration for me.

Also in regards to the recent article about the tool Ben Wizz, he sent more emails to our support department insisting that the cancel button doesn’t exist and if it is there now, that we have just put it there. what a joke, he also continued to refer to me as a “Fat Tw@” who eats nothing but McDonalds and has a sl*g of a girlfriend, which couldn’t be further from the truth, still though, it shows exactly how immature this guy is, and the fact he’s been caught is getting to him. Also I’ve had a few messages from people who are hosted with him, SHOUTcast mainly, I’d recommend you move to a different company pretty swiftly and cancel any payments you make to him, apparently he uses a MSN Address he “hacked” and a hacked PayPal account.. again, he’s full of crap, we can all be hackers, all you have to do is create a new hotmail account under a completely random name, for example, John Smith, then add all your buddies, and say “hey its ant, i just hacked this john smiths msn, how cool am i, now, send me £100 or i will hack yours” seriously? get real.

Anyhow, this guys stupidity has provided many laughs during a frustrating weekend.

don’t forget to comment and let me know how your bank holiday weekend has been.

So today at the office has been rather amusing, so I’m going to tell you all about it.

We had a client who’s name was Ben Swift, and he had some sort of grudge against another website in which we host and was attempting to DoS (Denial of Service) attack this site totally un-aware that it was hosted at the same place he has his radio.

Now, Mr Swift thinks he is all high and mighty and that he was hidden behind a proxy whist attempting to make his DoS attacks using lame downloaded “n00bie” software. He was very much mistaken.

Bouncyservers and its data center consist of a lot of technically advanced minds, and a simple IP check on the attempted attacks pointed to him, meaning i was able to identify him instantly, now, Mr Swift says he didn’t live where he actually lives, told me he was in an army barracks and there was nothing we can do about it and we cannot trace him.

Wrong again Mr Swift, our data center take this stuff very seriously, and they were able to track him no problem, he says were looking in the wrong place because he used a proxy, and as far as I’m aware, Blue Yonder don’t provide proxy servers, and if he WAS using a proxy, it would of been much harder for us to trace him, the fact we knew it was him and traced it to him proves we know what we need to know to take legal action.

Anyway, he still persists on telling us he cant be traced because he signed up to our services with a fake address and registers domains with a fake address, fact is, we have his ISP information, and have reported it to them for malicious activity.

Now, onto the funny part.

Mr Swift thinks he is a big bad hacker guy who cant be traced, and he sent us this email.

ben swift
Client
25/05/2009 17:01

Hi if there was a botton with the work CANCEL on it i would have clicked it a long time ago so stop been stupid noobies that you are and delete my accounts because i am not paying for your shitty services any more useles crap lol

Now, he’s apparently super intelligent and is able to avoid our technical team, yet he is unable to spell and types like a child, and for someone who is MORE than internet savvy, how was he not able to see this?

As you can see, the cancellation button is there, he was unable to find it, which to me, proves his intelligence.

Also as i mentioned to him in this support ticket, how are our services “shitty” when we were able to prevent his malicious attempts at an attack, trace him and protect the clients site he was trying to attack?

Quite simply, were not

Now, as for Mr Swift, he will find that his address and name will be blacklisted from ISP’s and find himself unable to get a fixed line internet connection, and if it turns out he is in a Army barracks, well, he’s going to be in some SERIOUS trouble for using a military internet connection for malicious activities, that’s the type of stuff that can cause a war if attacking the wrong place. Now, i know some of you reading this know Mr Swift, so please, feel free to laugh at him all you like for being so retarded thinking he is so savvy and intelligent. Turns out his big mouth has done nothing but get him into trouble and help build our case against him.

We actually spent around an hour today laughing at this guy whilst we were building the new servers, true entertainment indeed.

Its that time again boys and girls, the time in which poor Anthony here is over run with work and things to do. Amongst the chaos of all the software upgrades and app building, I have now got a server to build, and me being me, the perfectionist that i am, its sure to be a problem free transfer (fingers crossed).

So, basically when we move to new servers its a really simple process, but can be very time consuming. The whole process is just like transferring all your files from one PC to another. First of all we have to build the server, then we have to get everything installed, things like apache, PHP, MySQL, cPanel and then after that, we have to get all the security put in place.

Once all this has been done, we then start the transfer, generally this is an automated process done between the 2 servers. The new server connects to the old server, and then it sucks everything off the old servers hard drive and places it on the new server. The fun doesn’t stop there though.

Once everything is moved across we have to validate that every single file has been transferred successfully, now, I’m sure your aware how many files are stored on your home PC, well, its a lot, and the amount of files on the server can be double that at times. If your a customer and you want to help speed up the process, you could delete any unnecessary files from you hosting account which would help increase transfer times, but you don’t really have to do this.

During this time we will also be investigating suspended accounts and terminating them as necessary, reducing the amount of data we have to transfer, so if your hosting account has been suspended for the last 5 days, your have 3 days to have it resolved.

If your a BouncyServers customer there will be a lot of information in an email the support department sent out regarding the transfers, but if you have any questions about the move, you may ask here and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Stick around for more updates as i progress, it can take up to 24 hours for the server to be built so i guess we all have 24 hours at least before any transfer takes place.

So, were coming up to the end of the month, and for many people this means there phone bills amongst lots of other things are due to be paid. For me, it marks the start of another long and boring phone call with o2 about my phone bill.

Now, i have been with o2 for years, prices are fair and never used to have any problems, that however has been a thing of the past for the last year. Something to look back on and think “ahh, remember the good old days when you used to just pay your bill without any hassle”.

Now, for the problem. Every month I’m forced to phone o2 because they cut off my phone for no reasons, mess up my bolt ons, or start charging me for things they shouldn’t be. Well, I’m sad to say, this month they messed up BIG time.

Mobile phone tariffs can be quite expensive, for me, i choose a £45 a month tariff on the iPhone, seemed to be the best deal for me for what i use. Now, £45 doesn’t sound like much, and its defiantly something that is achievable each month for me without any problems, and this is why i choose the tariff i am on.

So this morning, 7:25am i get out of bed, check my phone and notice i have a new email. It’s from o2 and its my phone bill. I wasn’t to worried about my bill this month as I’d hardly been using my phone, but upon reading the email i found myself being smacked in the face with what can only be described as an imaginary wet fish. Let me show you the email i got.

Dear mr Anthony Kinson

You can now take a look at your O2 bill for 18/05/09 online. Your total bill for this month is £655.28. Please arrange to pay this by the date detailed on your bill. Cheques being cheques, they do take a few days to clear so if you could write your mobile phone number or O2 account number on the back of the cheque and send it in time to allow for this, that would be great. Alternatively, why not pay with your debit or credit card by using the ‘make a payment’ option from your online bill, or call customer service and select the ‘billing and payments’ option.

Now at first I’m thinking what the hell is going on here, maybe the email is just wrong, or maybe my phone was connected to the internet and downloaded some stuff while i was asleep, or maybe i accidentally dialled a number. At this point i decided to logon to my o2 account on my laptop. Here’s what i found. (click to enlarge)

As you can see, that is pretty messed up, first problem is my tariff has been listed 4 times. one is a deduction, then I’ve been charged £555 for my tariff, and then i have been charged again twice with 2 lesser amounts. Now i don’t know what the hell is going on with o2, but all they seem to do is mess up my bill, more so this month than ever before, and this isn’t just the first problem, before they updated there site, i had loads of problems logging into my account. Apparently it was my browser, or should i say, the browser on my phone, my PC, my laptop, my mums pc, my friends laptop, apparently my account was fine, and the problem was with all of these computers, despite the fact my mum could login to her o2 account on all of them. Problem is down to there poor coding in there websites, its pretty much as simple as that and anyone who has been into an o2 store will know that there computers are always down.

So, the next step for me is to now phone them, have them fix it, which will probably result in my phone being cut off like last time, they told me not to pay the bill so it could be regenerated and to pay double the following month, 2 days later, my phones cut off for not paying the bill. Crazy, the whole o2 system is a mess and i seriously think they should re-think about there system layout.

If anyone else is on o2 and has had similar problems, or recurring problems with o2, comment on this article and share your story. Would be interesting to read what other problems people are having.

Just a quick message really. There is going to be a major overhaul on the livestream player, Basically it is going to be put into its own module / class and there’s now 28 selectable themes for it, including the themes you are already familiar with.

This should allow for better calls to the livestream player in hooks and modules that people may create. Thinking ahead

Anyway, i will post another article soon with a sneaky peak at the skins that will be available.

Right then, well I’ve been a busy bunny since my last article with updating the listener info detection for media players, and, well, there’s now 7 which are recognised successfully (see below image).

• Winamp
• iTunes
• VLC Media Player
• Real Player
• Bouncy Radio Center LIVE Stream
• SHOUTcast App for iPhone / iPod Touch
• Windows Media Player

If you know of any other popular media players that are used to tune into your radio just let me know the name of the media player, and the user agent information, and I’ll add it to the standard list.

Also to answer questions i often get asked about VLC player. The reason its not added as an option to tune in with is because VLC uses all sorts of file types and supports lots of methods, as such, you can use VLC to tune in using the winamp link or the iTunes link, and so on. Any entry for VLC would be nothing more than a duplicate of another link so not really needed, but it IS supported.

If you want to send me a recommendation for a media player just comment on this article and I’ll respond. If you have Bouncy Radio Center v8 installed you can tune into your radio with the media player you want to submit and grab the User Agent data from the listener info there.

Information is something you can never have to much of (except in Beth’s case where she likes to describe in detail her trip to the toilet). Well the new Radio Center 9 is no different and at this point, I’d like to introduce you to the new listener info pop up box.

As you can see it has a few new additions since its v8 counterpart such as player icons and under runs. So, first of all the player icons, nothing more than a visual representation of the player that listener is using. In v8 you would have to look at the User Agent box and determine from that. Well with a lot of patients and some regular expressions you can now see a cool little icons for each listener. If however the player is not recognised, an unknown icon will be displayed and you can check out the user agent field for more information.

Now onto under runs. A lot of radio owners are often faced with members of their forums or radio listeners saying that the radio keeps stuttering or buffering, and as a radio owner its hard to determine whether just this 1 listener is having the problem, or if all listeners are having a problem. On a DJ point of view this usual results in the do having to disconnect and reconnect, just to be safe. well no there is no need. You can check to see if all listeners are experiencing under runs or buffering.

For example, listener ID 482 in the above image, lets imagine he has 12 under runs, and the other listeners have 0. We can safely assume that the problem is with that listeners internet connection and act accordingly, asking the listeners to ensure they are not using all their bandwidth downloading or if there using a 3G connection as they are tuned in with an iPhone/iPod Touch, so from these 2 new bits of information (player and under runs) we can assume maybe this listeners signal has dropped or there speed has reduced causing under runs / buffering.

If all listeners are having under run problems then you can assume that the DJ is having bandwidth problems with his upload speed and ask him to reduce the bit rate accordingly, alternatively, if your radio is not hosted with BouncyServers (probably the best host in the world) it could very well be a server lag problem.

As you can see, these new features don’t give you a definitive answer, but they help MUCH more in determining the cause of any lag issues.

And this boys and girls, is just one more reason why the Bouncy Radio Center is the best all round SHOUTcast management solution around.

Let me know what you think, and stick around for more updates very soon!

Everybody works in one way or another, we all have jobs to do, and for the last few days, I’ve been dreading getting out of bed for a few reasons. First of all, because I’ve not been eating properly or getting much sleep at all over the last few weeks which is leaving me a bit short in the old energy department, and secondly, because i know I’m going to have to stare at a screen full of code for hours, and that being the reason for the first.. erm.. reason..

Seriously though, I have just spent around 8 hours finishing off the new Radio Center Sidebar Hook, and why, because it’s a long process meeting standards.

Hooks for example come bundled in 1 xml file, this file has to contain language strings, template bits, settings, PHP code, help files, database queries and so on.

Now the radio sidebar hook only contains 1 template bit, 12 settings, 24 language strings, 1 PHP file and 1 help file and its taken me all this time to complete it.

Saying that, the sidebar module uses the RAJAX module and has some JavaScript coding in it also, so I’ve had to add some stuff to the RAJAX module to auto update certain elements of the sidebar. Still, most people will look at the sidebar and think nothing of it, its small, it doesn’t look too complicated, and in reality, its taken hours and hours to complete.

The fun doesn’t end there though, oh no. I’ve still got loads of other bits to complete, the main board panel hook for starters, its almost done, i just cant decide if i like the look of it or not, mainly because of the padding with the default IPB table class, however i did write a class called “RadPad” specifically for the radio, but i haven’t decided if i want to use it or not yet.

Then there’s the global radio bar hook, which i haven’t even started yet.. HA! fun times!

As far as the actual radio center goes lets see, the History page is completed, done, dusted, the schedule page is done on the public side, but I’m not happy with the way scheduled entries are laid out, so that’s probably going to have an overhaul. DJ List, not started, Downloads, not started, Linking, Not done but that’s an easy one, Stats, done, but not finished.

Mentioning the stats, i forgot to post on my blog about them, so i will write an article shortly about the new stats features.

Despite all the work i have done so far, completion still seems a long way away. I’ve literally been getting up, working on the radio center, going to bed, getting up, working on the radio center, going to bed.

Time off today i think, but saying that, I’m to anxious to get it finished i end up going back to it, telling myself I’ll just do a little edit here an there and before i know it am full on writing modules and crap.

Anyways, enough ranting from me, I’m gonna go eat.

So while i have been working away for hours and hours every day over the last few weeks working on the new Radio Center, I’ve been thinking about how to give people the best value for money when using the Radio Center.

Now, personally, i would like to give the best deal to loyal BouncyServers customers, and this comes in the form of giving them the new Radio Center absolutely free. On a business point of view this would be crazy and would be a stupid idea, so i was thinking, what’s the best way to give BouncyServers customers a free Radio Center whilst still being able to maintain the costs of the licensing server and keeping the production and updates of the software active.

At this point 2 things came to mind, the first one is building a separate copy of the radio center which has adverts bundled into it, we get some advertising, and the client gets the free software. However, nobody likes adverts, and adverts wont pay the bills. This is when i had the second idea, i could lock the radio center to only function with radios provided by BouncyServers, and there we have it.

Now, this is a great idea, but it has its flaws, first of all clients with standard cheap radios would not cut the running costs for both the radio and the radio center, so we would have to set in some conditions.

These conditions… well, i will be setting up a minimum spend amount on the radio, for example, if you spend £** on a bouncyservers radio, we will give you a free license for the brand spanking new Bouncy Radio Center.

This benefits both us and the clients, we get additional custom as people would start using our radio servers instead of other radio servers, and the clients will get the radio center absolutely free with no additional cost, all they would have to do is get there radio from us.

Of course this is just going to be one of the available options, we will still have the usually options for people who run there own radio servers or do not wish to move allowing them to purchase a radio license the old fashioned way. Were happy, there happy, everybody’s happy!

If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this please comment and let me know, even throw across your own licensing ideas if you think there is a better option.

2 announcments here, first of all, the new v9 radio center will now list all listeners tuned in on the iPhone or iPod Touch and display a cool little icon next to them in the listener info list and secondly all BouncyServers SHOUTcast customers radio streams are listed with SHOUTcast’s stream directory by default, meaning that they now have the potential to attract more listeners, even if they are not visitors to there websites.

This option can be switched off for people who wish to remain private of course and the same applys for our V-Cast customers with video streams.

That’s about it, just a quick update really but there will be more news coming soon on the new progress of the new radio center.