It came to our attention yesterday that our building had lost all data access to the outside world. AAPT was blaming Optus and there was no telling what day we would have our data access back. Lucky we have a separate data center for our web servers.

Being a digital agency we needed to stay connected to be able to update our sites and to contact our clients. And since our phones run on VoIP we were between a rock and a hard place. So I did the obvious thing. I tried to teach this hamster to both modulate and demodulate digital signals on this tin can telephone line.

 

   

 

Ok so the hampster (we'll call him Freddie) was not really up to the task with his Monday-itis. So I devised an engenious plan. What if I could run our entire network through a computer connected to one of the spare iBurst wireless modems in storage? So I called Chilli Internet to set up an account.

 

Before I knew it I had a working data connection on my laptop, sharing the connection to 28 computers through its ethernet port. All that was left was to point the DNS servers to the laptop's IP and then run ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew on all the PC's in the office.

This was the end result: 

 

 

Macgyver would be proud :o)

 

ps. The catch was that our email could not work. We could send emails to the outside world but not receive them. This was because our email gets forwarded to our office's static IP address. I could have changed our mail forwarding IP with our provider, however it would have taken up to 24hours to change, and then I'd have to change it back once the building's data connection was fixed. If we were given a timeframe of a week then it might have been worth it. 

 

I just found a great sushi place on Crown St. It is awesome. I liken it to a sushi deli. Choose from the already made boxes, or choose which pieces you want. It is opposite the Commonwealth bank on Crown St.

 

Here's how to get to it from The Farm

Click here

The only down side is that credit card purchases must be over $20. So even though I only wanted the $11 lunch pack, I was stuck having to get the really expensive (but very tasty) sushi.

   

 

I just had 2 pork buns. I found a place that sells them at Central Station. The wooden steamers are directly at the door. They sell the buns right there.

$1.20 per bun. So damn good. SO DAMN GOOD!

 

This is how easy it is to get there from The Farm: Click here

 

Note: You can actually walk through the tunnel and get out on the other side of George st. Google Maps doesnt have that information though. Hence the zig zag.

 

I have the feeling there might be regular trips for Farm Buns now.

 

Eat as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Ready, set, go! 

The Farm racked up $420 worth of Yum Cha over lunch.

Zilver (www.zilver.com.au) in the City. Great food.

 

 

I did a presentation on Macgyver at our fortnightly breakfast meeting. How does Macgyver relate to The Farm?

Macgyver used objects and tools around him to get himself out of a jam. When a tool was not present or there was nothing immediately useful around, he used what was available and improvised. 

As programmers, we are often presented with tasks that involve a bit of lateral thinking. Gone are the days of casual R&D. These days we must often (and quickly) survey what tools are available to us, and then MacGyver together a solution (even if it means making the tools ourselves).

Here are some of the technologies we have MacGyvered together at the The Farm (used in various combinations)

- .Net 1, 2, 3, 3.5

- CSS/ HTML

- AJAX

- Lytebox

- PHP

- LINQ

- Entity Spaces

- Umbraco

- Flash/Flex 

- Silverlight

- Wordpress

- .Net Blog Engine

- After Effects

- Haymail / MailBuild API's