Friday 26 September 2014

Security Certificate Fun&Games - or a warning to the wise


Recently there has been a difficulty reaching Google mainly on the XP machine. We keep getting the message about an SSL string too long. I know that I found an indication that TalkTAlk accepts responsibility and is working on it.  

As an attempt to cure the problem as it mostly appeared in Firefox and sometimes in Chrome, I went into Firefox options and deleted a number of Security certificates that looked dodgy, like the one for homeland security, and ones with a tk or ru suffix.

This caused grievous problems as we couldn't get into Facebook, 23snaps, or a number of other sites. I was told this morning that the banking site was unavailable as it didn't have a valid security certificate. During the week some sites have said that the certificate was not there and wouldn't work, and some would let me proceed if I allowed an exception, which I did. I should have kept a record of those.

Today I exported all of the certificates from the Linux computer Firefox, copied those that would on to a memory stick, and started importing them into XP's Firefox. I was able to export the certificates to disk as a single action, but had to import them back in one at a time in a tedious process.
Initially If the first of a named set indicated that it was already installed, I didn't bother with the sub-ones, but later at about the 'c's I realised that the sub-ones sometimes were not present when the main one was, so started being more thorough. I have now installed up to the 'g's, leaving 97 certificates not touched, and it looks like everything is back working. 
I'll keep the certificates on the memory stick for awhile until I am sure. .

Saturday and Amazon gave a certificate warning, so I have put back the rest of the certificates. Of course some were already installed, but I did have to restore some. I had 302 certificates on that memory stick. 

The moral of the story is, don't delete the certificates unless you have taken a backup first, and then only do a few at a time.



Sunday 7 September 2014

Fixing the Crank

When I updated the Raleigh Grand Prix with a  cotterless crank a few years ago, I didn't notice anything wrong,  but when I replaced the front derailleur recently I did notice that the sprockets are too far out from the frame. As this picture shows the inner sprocket is at least a centimetre out from the frame at the back, where it should be quite close, and the derailleur is at full stretch to get to the large sprocket. I know from looking recently that the spindle is a 5T with a 42mm length on the sprocket side.


Another thing that has bugged me is that when I had to replace the left hand crank I couldn't get a straight one like the old one was.

Then I looked up into the rafters and noticed that the Wasp ( yellow Peugeot with black mudguards) had a straight crank, so I thought that I would swap them.



When I took the crank off I noticed that the end cap seemed to be protruding more that I might have expected, leading me to believe that the spindle had too large a centre measurement to the shoulders. Note the picture (sorry that it is not a good focus)



So I removed the spindle and replaced it with one of the correct size. The one that I removed seems to be quite large in the central dimension. To understand this you need to consult www.sheldonbrown.com/bbsize . The markings on it are not common ones. I will expand on that when I have an explanation. It is possible that it will fit appropriately in the Grand Prix, though the ideal spindle is a 5N.  

11/9/14   Still cannot find an explanation of the markings, but it seems that the central dimension is 57mm, according to the LBS, therefore not appropriate to the bike. So I binned it.

Another test that I did today was to come on to the smaller sprocket and note that the shaft of the derailleur was still 9mm extended, so therefore in theory I could reduce the length of the spindle by 9mm from the current 42mm.


4 Feb 2015

This 5T spindle  was not symmetrical. I have been shopping around for the 'ideal' spindle as noted above, and yesterday after visiting the Forge Cycle Works in Ringwood and asking if they had a spindle to fit, I came home and swapped the spindle around so that the long end is on the left side. This has made the changer fit nicely and work well, and then I decided to measure the distance from the seat post out to the end of the crank. On both sides this was 6 cm which means that the crank is now, as far as I am concerned, symmetric. Also each crank  missed teh frame by about 1.5 cm at it's rearmost position.

Too me this is perfect and I am a happy guy.