May 2008 - main - earth.li

recommended commercial hosting companies?
by mbm 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

The recent discussion about mail access via ssh and ssh tunnels prompts me to ask about list members' experience of commercial hosting services. I have long since ceased to have any direct responsiblity for publicly accessible servers and my only network is now my home system. As I have said in earlier posts, I don't run 24/7 servers on that network and my only public servers are those provided by my (limited, home user) 1and1 contract. However, I have recently been playing with egroupware and a few friends and colleagues have asked if I could make the poc system I have built at home available on a public server. 1and1 provide good, reliable, fast, mail, DNS and web services, but they also offer virtual servers for the home user at around 15 UKP pcm. The other likely looking candidate is fasthosts who are a lot cheaper, have no traffic cap, but have different limitations. What I am looking for is a good quality commercial provider offering the following: root ssh/sftp access to a linux server apache/mysql/php/perl (preferably with no limit on the number of mysql databases, but I'd settle for 5 rather than the typical 1). ssl certificates for the webserver personal DNS management ideally local email server not too many restrictions on the outbound traffic (e.g. I'd like to be able to ssh out as well as in...) Any recommendations? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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upgrading from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS
by Bev Nicolson 21 Jun '08

21 Jun '08

I've done what the Ubuntu website says and gone to system > admin > update manager and installed the last batch of updates but it doesn't mention anything about the new version when I click on 'upgrade' again. Am I a) being a bit impatient or b) is there another (simple!) way round this? Oh yes, and is there anything important I need to do, that I have forgotten, before upgrading? Thanks. Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting returns next week (Monday 19th May) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hope to see you there, Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Waves. (And the Eee PC)
by Anthony Anson 03 Jun '08

03 Jun '08

After a very long absence I've a huge number of ALUG items to look through, so now I'm back online (c/o a Vodafone broadbean dongle) I'll be going through the backlog of more than two years and maybe asking questions which have been covered before if they come up before I get to their discussion. The first of these questions is, has anyone written a script to drop into Linux of any flavour to allow it and the aforementioned Vodafone dongle to talk to each other? I have an Asus Eee, and am not overly chuffed with their dumbed-down version of Linux - 'My Network Places', 'My Computer', 'My this, that and the other'. Yeeuch! And MSN? I ask you! And the book of destructions states that 'Removing the pre-installed software is not allowed' Hmmm. We shall see about _THAT_! I shall be investigating the specially developed version of Ubantu, and a script that will mate that with Vodafone would be most useful innit. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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Aptitude manual
by James Freer 03 Jun '08

03 Jun '08

Is it possible to print out the aptitude manual [aptitude~>help~>user's manual] in ubuntu or debian. I just find it a pain trying to take in reading .txt just from a screen. I've got aptitude(8) from man aptitude in terminal. I was hoping it might have been transferred to a pdf somewhere. thx james

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backups for the very unsophisticated...?
by Peter Alcibiades 30 May '08

30 May '08

Any thoughts or experience on a backup tool for a very unsophisticated user? Like, one who cannot really be trusted to copy in the right direction from a hard drive to a usb stick? Who is quite capable of thinking that the way to get rid of a file on usb stick is to move it to the desktop. A brilliant and intelligent person but with a tech blind spot who on the previous machine was used to backing up folders to floppies labelled with the same name as the folder, which worked fine for years, but the new machine has no floppy drive... And of course fewer and fewer external people will accept data on floppies now. I'm considering the following: One usb stick labelled backup, with instructions to only use it for backups and keep it in the same reasonably secure place. This would back up the /home/user directory in its entirety. The instruction would be: do this every Friday, or more often if lots of revisions have been done. kde keep for the actual backup tool. It seems simpler than the gnome one, pybackpack, though he is running Gnome. We need as few options as possible! A second usb stick to be used for carrying files around and transferring them to other people (in addition to email). Any other thoughts appreciated. These are mostly text files with some graphics, ie the volume is not huge. The home directory will fit on a 2G usb drive for the forseeable future. Al

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Moving firefox passwords between machines
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 30 May '08

30 May '08

Hi Folks, I've had an oldish firefox running for a few years one one machine, and have accumulatd a few dozen login username/passwords for various websites. I'm now doing most of my browsing using iceweasel on a new machine, and I'd like to "copy" all those passwords over to the new setup. Passwords are stored in encrypted form in a file signons.txt (old machine) or signons2.txt (new machine), and each is in a directory ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default, where the "xxxxxxxx" is a random-looking string (different between the two) and presumably serves as an encryption key. So I can't just copy signons.txt to signons2.txt -- it doesnt work! (tried it). One way, of course, is to trek through edit>preferences>passwords in firefox on the old machine, and get them up in the browser, unencrypted, and read them off when I need them. This of course is tedious! Any suggestions for how to port the lot from firefox to iceweasel? (I had no problem simply copying my bookmarks.html from one to the other; but then that's just plain text). With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 29-May-08 Time: 10:46:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Bash commands
by Bev Nicolson 30 May '08

30 May '08

<<While I'm at it, though, if you type the bash command 'help' on the command-line, you'll get a useful summary of what's available. Then typing 'help <keyword>' for any of the keywords that come up will give a detailed breakdown of its usage.>> Thanks Ted. This is the sort of thing I'm after. I don't think I have the appitude to become a real geek! :¬) bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk > To: "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> > Subject: RE: [ALUG] Bash commands > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 21:15:54 +0100 (BST) > > > On 29-May-08 19:25:16, Bev Nicolso'll get a usefuon wrote: > > Still on the nursery slopes as far as bash commands I'm afraid > > but have, once again, realised how very useful they can be. How > > do you learn what to type in in any given situation, though? (I'm > > asking > > generally, not for any specific problem I have now.) > > Bev. (Ubuntu user.) > > Bash is quite a complex thing (as indeed are even the simpler > shell languages), though most usage will be fairly basic. > > And 'man bash', while useful for looking up something you know > you're wanting to use, isn't all that helpful for suggesting > what to do to perform a given type of task. > > While I'm at it, though, if you type the bash command 'help' > on the command-line, you'll get a useful summary of what's > available. Then typing 'help <keyword>' for any of the keywords > that come up will give a detailed breakdown of its usage. > > E.g. try > > help > help alias > > However, it looks as though you might need a "bash tutorial" > so enter that into Google (including quotation marks) and > you'll get several helpful-looking results. > > I thought that the one at > > http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html > > looked pretty good for the day-to-day stuff; and it has a > big brother at > > http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ > > for more advanced stuff. > > Hoping this helps! > Ted. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 > Date: 29-May-08 Time: 21:15:47 > ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 35, Issue 34
by James Hayes 30 May '08

30 May '08

I have a Linoscan 1400 scanner(Umax 3400) that works with feisty fawn but refuses to work with Hardy Heron on my Apple G4 ppc any ideas 2008/5/30 <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk>: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Wayne Stallwood) > 2. Bash commands (Bev Nicolson) > 3. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (mbm) > 4. Re: Bash commands ( (Ted Harding)) > 5. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines ( (Ted Harding)) > 6. Re: Export emails (chestep) > 7. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Simon Elliott) > 8. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Rob Page) > 9. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Simon Elliott) > 10. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (James Freer) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 12:25:25 +0100 > From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Moving firefox passwords between machines > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Message-ID: <1212060325.11243.13.camel@digimatic> > Content-Type: text/plain > > On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 10:46 +0100, Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk wrote: >> >> Passwords are stored in encrypted form in a file signons.txt >> (old machine) or signons2.txt (new machine), and each is in >> a directory ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default, where the >> "xxxxxxxx" is a random-looking string (different between the >> two) and presumably serves as an encryption key. >> >> So I can't just copy signons.txt to signons2.txt -- it doesnt >> work! (tried it). >> > > Look at this thread..any help ? > > http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2767968 > > You will also need to move key3.db afaik > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 20:25:16 +0100 > From: "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> > Subject: [ALUG] Bash commands > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <20080529192516.7DBAE233D2(a)ws5-3.us4.outblaze.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" > > Still on the nursery slopes as far as bash commands I'm afraid but > have, once again, realised how very useful they can be. How do you > learn what to type in in any given situation, though? (I'm asking generally, not for any specific problem I have now.) > Bev. (Ubuntu user.) > > -- > _______________________________________________ > Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: > Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com > > Powered by Outblaze > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 20:40:42 +0100 > From: mbm <mbm(a)rlogin.net> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Moving firefox passwords between machines > To: ted.harding(a)manchester.ac.uk > Cc: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <20080529204042.4a812202(a)door.rlogin.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > On Thu, 29 May 2008 10:46:50 +0100 (BST) > (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> allegedly wrote: >> >> I've had an oldish firefox running for a few years one >> one machine, and have accumulatd a few dozen login >> username/passwords for various websites. >> >> I'm now doing most of my browsing using iceweasel on a >> new machine, and I'd like to "copy" all those passwords >> over to the new setup. >> >> Any suggestions for how to port the lot from firefox to iceweasel? >> > > I've not tried this, but I just stumbled across it when looking for a > replacement for my (now broken under 3.0) trashmail.net addon. > > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2848 > > Mick > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word > Documents. For some reasons, see: > > www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html > www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >

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Re: [ALUG] Export emails
by chestep 29 May '08

29 May '08

Hi James Thanks for your reply and link re exporting Thunderbird emails, James. Ann

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