September 2005 - main

firebird-super-server primary key help
by Owen Synge 14 Oct '05

14 Oct '05

Well I am a little anoyed as I wanted to write a basic fit for my needs app basded on firebird as I remember a previous employer used interbase a lot but I am stuck making primary keys get values automatically. knowing we have some experts on this list please help Owen $isql-fb Use CONNECT or CREATE DATABASE to specify a database SQL> CREATE DATABASE '/tmp/dvb4.fdb'; SQL> CREATE TABLE TABLEA ( CON> TABLEAPK BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY , CON> TABLEANAME varchar(20) CON> ); SQL> COMMIT; SQL> CREATE GENERATOR GENPKTABLEA; SQL> COMMIT; SQL> CREATE TRIGGER BEFOREINSERTTABLEA for TABLEA CON> ACTIVE BEFORE INSERT position 0 CON> AS CON> BEGIN CON> IF(NEW.TABLEAPK IS NULL) THEN CON> NEW.TABLEAPK = GEN_ID(GENPKTABLEA, 1); Statement failed, SQLCODE = -104 Dynamic SQL Error -SQL error code = -104 -Unexpected end of command SQL> END CON>

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Kitmeet @ UEA, 23 October
by sfr 05 Oct '05

05 Oct '05

Sunday 23 October Nelson Court B Common Room 14:00 - 18:00 Pub afterwards Bring:- working kit, need-to-get-working kit, and kit you'd like to transfer to another home software coffee makers, tea-things, and snacks friends, relations, and gerbils. There'll be a cake-stall, but feel free to donate. Nelson Court is the building near the LCR and main car park, i.e. not the location of the last UEA meet, but the one before. FAO Sionide: it appears to have been booked as a meeting for an incipient student-union-soc, so get inaugurating :) sfr

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Is anyone successfully using ATI...
by Ten 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

Is any ALUGger successfully using ATI radeon cards with real 3d acceleration these days? I recall it being a fruitless exercise in the past, but now isn't the past and I wonder if anyone's having any real success with this now. Buying a graphics card on an almost Dickensian budget, whilst wanting it to be an actual upgrade, I'm considering a low-end Radeon 9600 for 35 quid (after missing out on an nvidia Geforce 6600 for 50). I'm not convinced of the card's brilliance, but I'm more wondering whether Radeons in general are usable + good yet - it would widen the breadth of choice a little :) On the leisure side, I'd like to still be able to play a few good fps titles (which I can already do on a much cheaper card, just not in as meaningful a way as I'd like :D ) and will be buying doom 3 soon. My personal exp. has led me to think of nvidia as the only grown-up option. Am I wrong yet? -- There are 10 types of people in this world -those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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wiki fun'n'games
by Paul 02 Oct '05

02 Oct '05

Got a small problem dropped in my lap.. Need to import a whole bunch of html pages in to a wiki environment. I've installed kwiki and got it up and running with minimal effort, and now kinda stuck on the most efficient method to import the data. Does anyone have some simple suggestions ? Regards, Paul. -- From the Klingon book of C: Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

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Printers
by Bob Dove 30 Sep '05

30 Sep '05

Hi all, Thanks for the riposte to my Walls End thing. Lon Dun, not sure the Gaels ever came further south than Watford Gap - which is why Lon Dunners don't (normally) wear kilts! I think that they expended their energies beating up the Picts and stayed in the hills chasing Haggis.! Printers for Linux, my Epson R300 prints from OOo OK, I haven't tried scanning with Linux yet as er, I have to use Windoze for my PhotoShop installation. Next time I have to scan, I'll see what happens and let you know - if your query isn't answered afore then. Cheers, BD.

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Eye candy
by Wayne Stallwood 29 Sep '05

29 Sep '05

I have just discovered 3ddesktop in the Ubuntu apt repositories. It gives a wholesome 3D experience to virtual desktop switching that is not unlike (or in fact if you enable the right options in the config files, exactly like) the fast user switch in OSX Only those with functional hardware 3D need bother to check it out, but I'd just thought I'd share. As well as being a bit of eye candy it actually serves a useful purpose to me. Often I forget which virtual desktop I left one of the many apps I tend to have open and so end up switching through all of them. I know there is a setting somewhere to allow the taskbar in gnome to show all open apps. but with so many open it gets too cluttered. It's hard to describe but with this you get a pretty good idea of what's on all (4 in my case) desktops because they are like panes of glass in that you can see the contents from behind.

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Alug Library
by Wayne Stallwood 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

We have had a few days downtime due to Plusnet changing CGI servers and me not having time to move the site over to the new one. However it is now back up. The URL has changed to http://ccgi.digimatic.plus.com/opendb/ I tried to edit the Library booklist on the Alug site to reflect this but I get an error. Warning: fopen(./pages/archive/LibraryBooklist): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/alug/web/contrib/lib/db_filesystem.php on line 104 Has there been a change (I didn't pay attention to) due to the Wiki spam we were getting. On a related note I am still looking for a more suitable place for online library to live as Plusnet's CGI and MySQL servers aren't that great...I was talking to somebody off list who was going to sort something out for me, including I think some form of ssh access but I think we both got distracted by real work...sorry I can't remember who that was.

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All in one printers/scanners/copiers/faxes
by Adam Bower 27 Sep '05

27 Sep '05

Hi all, ISTR that we covered this recently but I can't find it in the archives. Anyhow, I'm looking for a printer/copier/scanner/fax machine that works with Linux (well, the printer/scanner bit) but there are so many devices and so many that don't work with Linux that I am banging my head against the brick wall. Does anyone know of a good one? (oh, I guess I have up to 150 quid to spend). Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

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Gnome, thin theme, and firefox
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

Hi Folks, Can any of you suggest a solution to the following irritation? I'm running Red Hat 9 on a somewhat low-powered laptop, using Gnome. I have changed the Gnome "theme" to "Simple" ("Thin appearance, hign performance") and it does indeed make a noticeable difference to performance. (Thanks, by the way, to a suggestion made many moons ago by Dave Gilbert which I came across while doing some housekeeping of old email). However, it has had one irritating side-effect. I normally use Firefox as browser now, since it is much lighter and snappier than the Mozilla which came with the distribution. But, when I click on "Bookmarks" and the list of bookmarks drops down (black text on grey background), as I track the mouse down the list the bookmark the mouse is over at any moment is "higlighted" (ironic quotes) by being made completely blank (just a white rectangle, no visible text). This was not the case before, using the default Red Hat Gnome theme ("Bluecurve"), where the highlighting simply set a lighter grey background and the text remained visible. Nor does it occur now if I use Mozilla instead of Firefox, since the highlighting sets a blue background instead of the unhighlighted grey, and the black text remains visible. Of course the Mozilla is the one that came with the Red Hat distribution, so may have been customised, while the Firefox is one I installed myself; so there may be some explanation there. I can't find anything in Firefox "Edit -> Preferences" which deals with this issue. Though this does not render Firefox unusuable (you just have to remember to read the text before the mouse comes to it) it does make it more awkward, and is certainly irritating! Any suggestions? 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: 26-Sep-05 Time: 09:23:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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NTLworld broadband & contract???
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

Hi Folks, A query which some of you may be able to resolve! A friend of mine, whose phone is already on an NTL line, has just had a cable modem installed by NTL for broadband via an NTL cable. The leaves them with the NTL CD awaiting insertion into their computer to initiate the setup and establish the broadband connection. So far so good. However, this comes with a contract (I don't have the full wording avaiable) on the lines of "By using the software you agree to ... " -- all sorts of things, including assigning to NTL (as "IAP") and "its suppliers Motive Communications Inc." the right to obtain information from their computer and make changes to settings on their computer; and furthermore to waive all possible claims against NTL, Motive, *AND*MICROSOFT*, and anyone else that NTL sees fit, relating to practically anything that one might normally expect to be able to claim for, The contract also grants NTL/Motive the right to "send information to your computer" and "upload changes", and enters into a commitment to "accept upgrades". For the most part the scope of these things is completely unspecified and the contract, as worded, seems to be an agreement to leave an open door to NTL and their buddies to extract any kind of information and use it for any kind of purpose, as well as arbitrarily interfering with the computer itself. In couple of places there is explicit mention of "changing internet related software", in particular a thing called "The Motive Client Foundation", and of the user supplying "information such as name (etc.)" [note "etc."]. While one might shrug ones shoulders and say "Well, in practice, all they're doing is ensuring they will be able to keep a decent service running", the broadness of the wording -- while in principle allows the providers to do what they like in the way of extracting information from the computer and using it any way they like -- is disquieting. Does anyone have comments on this? By the way, my friend also has a Linux installation so theoretically could use this instead of the Win98 which the CD is provided for ans which they normally use. Is this likely to prove workable? Presumably the software on the CD encapsulates settings and configurations whose details would need to be known before a Linux box could be set up "by hand" to do the job. And, in any case, it may be that if the "IAP" detects a "non-compliant" system then their servers may simply decline to cooperate. It all seems a bit of a black hole, and I don't myself know enough about what goes on here to give any advice (other than having the same impression that the contract "gives too much away"). Either or both of accounts of reassuring experiences/horror stories will be welcome! With thanks and 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: 25-Sep-05 Time: 14:30:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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