main July 2005

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56 participants
76 discussions

MS settles with IMB
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Hi Folks, I read today: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-1677235,00.html that MS have agreed to pay IBM $775 to settle claims going back to the 1990s. In particular they are related to a case against MS by the US Givet that its practices caused the demise of IBM's OS2 operating system. I recall that, in 1990-91 (i.e. before Linux came on the scene), I got seriously interested in OS2 as an OS for the IBM PC that offered functionality similar to the capabilities of Unix (which, already having experience of, I was eagerly looking for on the PC, being frustrated with the limitations of DOS and disgusted with the marshmallow experience of early Windows -- pink, sugary, squodgy, of no nutritional value, nauseating in large quantities, and liable to adhere tackily to whatever you were trying to do). Then, of course, came Linux; and, personally, I've never looked back. But I think the worlds of both serious and consumer computing were deprived, when OS2 sank, of what would probably have become a great OS. Ironically, at that same time (1991) I also learned of the existence of the MS project for Windows NT -- yes, it goes back that far! This, too, seemed as if it might offer Unix-like capabilities, and was another thing I was keeping an eye on in the hope that the PC would be enabled to yield the performance that its hardware was capable of. For some reason, however, it was many years before NT became generally used, and then mainly in "the background" in the corporate and institutional sector. It's satisfying, after all these years, to learn that IBM is (in effect) vindicated; but depressing all the same to be aware that a promising initiative had died so early on. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Jul-05 Time: 09:19:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Is this for real ?
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

http://www.merkeylaw.com/article.php?story=20050621145053855&mode=print Check out items 40 downwards for maximum amusement This one is a classic. "60. Perens posted Internet messages on LWN.net stating to Linux and OSS members that “Merkey works for SCO,” and that “Merkey should be placed in a file of people to be killed”. Merkey has not or ever worked for SCO or the Canopy Group." Is the US legal system so broken now that you have to be careful using terms such as killfile. Other classics include "46. The beheading and murder of United States Citizens in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have been videotaped, converted to MPEG and other images for viewing on the public Internet through the use of OSS and Linux software and computer technology developed and purloined by Linux and OSS members and illegally exported from the United States. 47. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of domestic and international terrorism. "

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RE: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: Printing JPG and GIF files - what's the simplest way?
by Keith Watson 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

> From: Chris Green Sent: 01 July 2005 15:17 > > > > Do you have OpenOffice installed (or anything with a decent Word > > Processor)? A technique I've often used is to open a blank document > > and then imported an image into it, then just printed the page with > > the image. It's a useful technique that I've used > successfully under > > Windows, Unix and Linux at various times (assuming that you > can print > > ok from the WP software). > > > Well I hate to say it but the easiest option was to load the > pictures into Visio in Windows and print from there. Simply > worked 'out of the box' with no hassle. Much in the same way > that printing from Firefox on Linux works, that seems to > manage the handling of getting things the right size by > default so why can't other applications do so well? I take it that Firefox wasn't an option for you in this case (I forget the beginning of this thread :o) )? Regards, Keith ____________ Stand still. - The trees ahead and the bush beside you are not lost. - Albert Einstein

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Printing JPG and GIF files - what's the simplest way?
by Chris Green 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

I have some GIF and JPG files (they're maps of wine producing areas in France) that I want to print. What's the easiest application to use to do this? All I want is for the image to be scaled to the best size to fit a sheet of A4 paper, no other manipulation is required. When I just opened the file from the xfce file manager using the default application it opened with ImageMagick, it looked perfect on screen but when I selected print the printout was displaced so that only half of it was printed. The orientation was right, it was just shifted down. I couldn't find any way to set up the printout in ImageMagick. I'm not even sure what sort of ImageMagick is being invoked - almost as bad as Windows! Then I tried opening the file with the Gimp and printing it, even more disastrous, the Gimp did its own thing and simply sent Postscript to the printer and thus produced nothing useful at all except lots of wasted paper. My printers seem to be set up right for everything else on my Linux box, why did the Gimp not get that right? I have many Gnome and KDE applications installed even though I use xfce for my desktop so I probably have most of the usual things people might suggest. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Desktops
by Peter Hunter 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Hi everyone, Two questions that I know you can all answere for me! I have just installed Suse 9.2 pro, and for a change I decided to install and run Gnome, but I don't like it too much and want to go back to KDE. I have installed KDE from the suse DVD but how do I now change desktops? Maybe I should download the latest version of KDE first and install and run that? Anyway, that's the first question. The second is, if I download the latest Kernal, how do I install and run that? Oh, just one other, how do I re-boot the GUI without having to re-boot the computer? Many thanks. I await the flood of replies (Pleaseeeeeeee!!) Peter

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CD Audio Autoplay
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Not being that used to Gnome I am hoping that someone can help me with this small problem. I am currently ripping my entire CD collection to store on a little Media Server I have built myself. I am using Grip which is fine. However every time I insert an Audio CD Gnome launches a player and starts playing it. I then have to stop this before I can rip the contents. How do I disable this behaviour ?

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