Wed 2012-03-14 
A black and yellow Ichneumon wasp, maybe a Cosmoconus sp (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae). Possible identification suggested by Camille Thirion here.
Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2010-09-12.
Tue 2012-03-13 
Common butterbur, Petasites hybridus, growing beside the top lake. Like with coltsfoot, the flowers of butterbur come out before its leaves.
Photo taken in the Wilderness, Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2012-03-11.
Mon 2012-03-12 
From autumn 2010: a birch catkin bug, Kleidocerys resedae (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae). See here for a couple from the following spring.
Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2010-10-05.
Sun 2012-03-11 In Ubuntu 10.04 LTS the default install of BackupPC stores all the backups in the directory /var/lib/backuppc which is located on the main hard disk drive /dev/sda. However, I wanted to store all my backups on an external USB hard disk drive /dev/sdb. This post records what I had to do to get this to work.
The external hard disk drive came with its disk preformatted as an NTFS file system. This file system does not support hard links which are critical for the efficient operation of BackupPC, so first we reformat the disk to EXT4 (a file system that does support hard links).
Display the partitions (I use parted rather than fdisk because its display is a bit clearer):
sudo parted -l
Create an new /dev/sdb1 partition (here I use with fdisk because parted could not create EXT4 file systems):
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
c (disable msdos mode)
u (set units to sectors)
d (delete partition 1)
1
n (create new primary partition 1)
p
1
<Enter>Use default first and last sectors
<Enter>
w (Write out the new partition table)
Check the /dev/sdb1 partition exists (but the file system column is blank):
sudo parted -l
Now we make the EXT4 files system:
sudo mkfs -t EXT4 /dev/sdb1
Now check the partition is now EXT4:
sudo parted -l
Now we actuall install BackupPC:
sudo apt-get install backuppc
Set the password for account 'backuppc':
sudo htpasswd /etc/backuppc/htpasswd backuppc
Point your web browser at http:/backuppc and log in as 'backuppc' with the password you have just set up. The BackupPC Server Status page should be displayed (it doesn't matter if there are some failed backups listed at the bottom of the page).
Copy the BackupPC data directory contents to the external hard disk drive:
sudo cp -r /var/lib/backuppc /media/usb0
And set its owner to 'backuppc':
sudo chown -R backuppc:backuppc /media/usb0/backuppc
Check the new data directory is present and has the right permissions:
sudo ls -al /media/usb0
And check its contents:
sudo ls -al /media/usb0/backuppc
Remove the old BackupPC data directory:
sudo rm -r /var/lib/backuppc
And replace it with a symbolic link to the new data directory (note the order of the parameters is target path before link path):
sudo ln -s /media/usb0/backuppc /var/lib/backuppc
Set the owner of the symbolic link to 'backuppc':
sudo chown -h backuppc:backuppc /var/lib/backuppc
Check the symbolic link is present and has the right permissions:
sudo ls -al /var/lib
And check that it links to the right contents:
sudo ls -al /var/lib/backuppc
Restart the server (just to make sure everything reinitializes):
sudo shutdown -r now
Point your web browser at http:/backuppc. The BackupPC Server Status page should be displayed. BackupPC is running with the data directory on the external hard disk drive.
Sun 2012-03-11 
A bumblebee, probably queen tree bumblebee, Bombus hypnorum (Hymenoptera: Apidae). This species was first recorded in the UK in 2001 and is now quite common throughout England.
Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-03-10.
