main April 2010

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43 discussions

Need any hardware?
by Chris Walker 25 Apr '10

25 Apr '10

I've long been a magnet for unwanted hardware and last week collected a couple of old PCs. One is a Time PC with an 800 MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and a 30 GB hard drive. I've been playing with it for a few days trying out various linux installs including Puppy, aLinux but it currently has Debian installed on it. It's free if anybody wants it. The second is a small Patriot machine. I haven't played much with that and so it still has Windows 98 on it. This is the machine type - http://www.dansdata.com/bookpc.htm It says on that page that it's suitable as a "home theatre, entertainment and Internet access device" but I'd say the fan is too noisy. Other than that, it works. They both come with monitors but I only have one keyboard and mouse for them. I also have a Compaq NC3122 dual network card. See here for details - http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c003… PM me if you're interested in any of these. I'm in Wymondham if that helps. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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GIMP/ImageMagick question
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 25 Apr '10

25 Apr '10

Hi Folks, I have a JPEG (from rhe Web) of a map of the regions in The Gambia. I want to use that as the basis for preparing an EPS file of the various borders of these regions. The objective is to import it into a document (a number of times). If I just use ImageMagicks 'convert' program to convert the JPEG into EPS, it's big -- 2.4MB -- because it plants each pixel separately. So the resulting document would be enormous. Also the text in the JPEG doesn't come out too well. And, anyway, in effect it's still a bit-map under another name! I would be content with an EPS with just the outlines as vector graphics. So what I'm thinking of is using the JPEG as "background" or "underlay" in a drawing program so that I could simply use the mouse to plot in the outlines I want into a (transparent layer on top of that, and then save the resulting layer (outlines only, but maybe a few text annotations as well) as an EPS file. I'm not (so far) seeing anything that corresponds to that aim in ImageMagick (but could be wrong, because the documentation for that is massive). I'm guessing that the GIMP could, but I might need some initial guidance on how to start that up for this purpose! In short, I want to trace the outlines of an image on screen into an EPS file. There's another program called 'xfig', but I'm pretty sure this doesn't allow a background as I've described. Any suggestions/help/advice most welcome. Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Apr-10 Time: 19:13:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 58, Issue 23
by Adam Reid 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

> Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:31:54 +0100 > From: gizbun <gizbun(a)aacute.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social > Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <1271698314.7663.9.camel@gizbun-desktop> > Content-Type: text/plain > > Damn was looking forward to this and I have a migraine coming on! > > David I've re-recorded the videos to better show the process, and added some answers/demonstrations to questions asked. You can find them at http://dev.anyma.co.uk/presentation/PartOne.ogv (36mb) and http://dev.anyma.co.uk/presentation/PartTwo.ogv (55mb). Obviously just pause if you'd like to read something in more detail, or stop the cursor; I didn't realise how much I was moving it around until watching the video afterwards. Regarding vocaloids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ a news article about them, gives a bit of background information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVHNgBj8sfs Anger - has excellent CG work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOt5tK1eZfY Part 1 of a live concert - as I said, the vocaloids have idol status in Japan. I love the leek glowsticks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXNH8TEP8vM and Double Lariat for Samwise

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Encrypted PDF with odd password
by Dan Hatton 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

Dear All, I have an encrypted PDF file that I can open just fine in Adobe Reader under Windows. But I'd really prefer to read it in Xpdf (or any open source tool). Unfortunately, Xpdf needs the password supplied on the command line, and the password contains characters that are special to the shell. (Actually, I don't think I need to be coy about this. It contains a percent sign, an ampersand, and a pound sign.) I've tried escaping the special characters with backslashes, enclosing the password in various types of quotes, and putting the password in an environment variable, but all of these result in "Incorrect password" errors and failure to open the document. Any ideas, please? -- Thanks, Dan

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Xubuntu Or Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

Hi. I am loving linux. After 10 years as a Mac only fan. A few months ago I bought a 1ghz Samsung laptop and ran Ubuntu on it. I loved it. The laptop died shortly after that and I got a Thinkpad 600 and running Xubuntu on it. I chose Xubuntu as it is only a P2 300mhz and was under the impression it was lighter than Xubuntu. After numerous threads it seems Xubuntu in fact is heavier on CPU usage and RAM than Ubuntu. So as I intend to stick with this ThinkPad for a while would there be any benefit in installing Ubuntu on it instead of Xubuntu. Simon -- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '10

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 is back this Monday 15th February, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Nothing particular planned this month, though I'm sure we'll end up covering broadband speeds again, if only briefly, now that Infinity is being rolled out (nowhere near us, I hasten to add). I may have a whinge about nvidia graphics drivers, as well. Remember to call (mail me in advance for my mobile no.) or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which might happen if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... 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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ThinkPad, Xubuntu, Wake Problem
by Simon Royal 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Hi I am having problems with ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu. I had it on there before, no problem. I took it off and reinstalled it recently and am having problems with it waking from sleep. I close the lid and leave it. When I go to open it, it wont wake. Nothing I do will wake it. I have to hold down the power button to get it to go off. It won't then power up. I have to remove the battery and put it back in and then it will boot fine and other than that it works fine. It has been doing it for about a week. Then today it stopped and would wake normally when the lid was opened. I thought the problem had gone away, however, it just started doing it again a few minutes ago. Any suggestions? It is very annoying. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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SCSI Drives
by James Bensley 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Hey Collective, Just got single Celeron old school beast server for my self to play with. Does anyone have any SCSI drives they want to (preferably) give me? It has 2x40GB 10K drives in it and I am looking for a few more so I can use it as a play ground at home. If anyone has got any I am after any size from 5GB > infinity as long as they are also 10K. TTFN. -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/

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ThinkPad 600 Xubuntu Sound Issues
by Simon Royal 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi I have an IBM ThinkPad 600 - which I got from a fellow group member. I have installed Xubuntu 9.10 and am having some problems getting the sound set up. I understand they have a different sound chip to the 600E and 600X and that most distros detect it with the wrong sound chip. Can anyone offer any advice or help on how to get sound working on this machine. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now

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Hosting
by Ian Porter 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi all, I am presently hosting my personal domain (http://www.codingfriends.com) on a friends server, but would like to host on my own but not for £30+ p/m. Was just wondering if anyone recommend cheap hosting, but also reliable. I have done a small search on google and come back with http://www.uk-cheapest.co.uk/hosting-plans.php http://www.freevirtualservers.com/free-hosting.htm There is an average 300 page views per day and rising :) Cheers Ian

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