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Reindeer
by Richard Lewis 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '08

Anthony, have you been there? Or just heard? I went home via the Reindeer on Friday (5/9). The lights were on, but the door was shut and there was a crude notice saying something like closed until further notice. I'll try and have another look tonight. And then post an announcement a.s.a.p. regarding Thursday's meeting. We met at the Alexandra Tavern last month. It was nice, but may be a bit out of the way. City centre pubs are probably better. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 11th Sep
by Richard Lewis 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '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 ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on * Thursday 11th September * at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY) which has now re-opened! I took a short detour on my way home last night to have a look. The door was open, the lights were on, there was someone at the bar, and I saw a man sitting at the window with a pint of beer. Therefore I'm confident that we'll arrive on Thursday to find an open pub. I intend to be there from about 20:00. Others may be there earlier. On a personal note, I'm moving to London soon and this is likely to be my last pub meet for a while. :'( We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+ ----- 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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What's happened to GnomeFiles?
by Torben Stones 09 Sep '08

09 Sep '08

Is it just my connection at work or has something happened to www.gnomefiles.org? When I type that address I get sent to www.osnews.com. Does anyone know what has happened? Torben -- You've got a lot of choices in your life. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.

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Calendar/contacts list recommendations wanted
by Chris G 09 Sep '08

09 Sep '08

I'm looking for a simple Calendar and Contacts list for Gnome (doesn't have to be a Gnome application really, I run fvwm) which can do syncMl synchronisation. There are a couple of full-blown productivity suites that do what I want but they're too big really, I don't want E-Mail and/or groupware. Any suggestions? I have looked using Google and on freshmeat.net but can't really find a *simple* utility. The best so far seem to be:- eGroupWare - PHP/web based, does *way* more than I need Simple Groupware - similar to eGroupWare ScheduleWorld - closer to what I want but seems to expect me to use their server I don't actually need a web based solution but it's OK if it is web based. I'd rather like command line access to the addresses at least so I can get E-Mail addresses into mutt. (I guess if it's mySql based it would be easy enough to write a script to do this) -- Chris Green

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2 laptops, 2 wireless LAN I/Fs, and ... ?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 08 Sep '08

08 Sep '08

Hi Folks, Given two laptops, each equipped with a wireless LAN interface, it seems to me that each should be able to find the other on a "point-to-point" basis (i.e. wireless equivalent of a CAT cable), without the need for each to connect to a wireless hub. But I'm not seeing how to achieve this! With both I/Fs switched on, neither seems to be aware of the other (when I start up a connection setup "wizard", and ask it to search for a network, though capable of detecting my next-door neghbour's BT Home Hub). Any suggestions? (And I have no experience whatever of using wireless networking, so keep it gentle ... )! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Sep-08 Time: 13:34:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Can anyone help?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 06 Sep '08

06 Sep '08

Hi Folks, Machine: Advent 8117 laptop Problem: While lifting up the keyboard to access the second RAM slot to install more RAM, I accidentally popped off two of the keys (adjacent). They are: (a) "Prt Sc"/"SysRq" (b) "Pause"/"Break" I'm not anticipating problems popping them back on again, but I can't remember which way round they should go! The top row of keys is: Esc F1 F2 F3 ... F11 F12 XXX YYY NumLock ScrollLock and one of XXX or YYY is (a) above, the other is (b). Does anyone know which way round it should be? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 05-Sep-08 Time: 16:12:33 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Xorg.conf or nVidia problem
by paul 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

Hi all I'b be grateful for help with the following problem When my new install of Ubuntu 8.04 boots the screen changes resolution instead of sticking with the 1152x768 I'd like it to. I'm using the GeForce4 MX 4000 & a single monitor ADI GD-790. The Splash screen appears normally but the Nvidia logo & log-in screens appears magnified - what should be only the upper left corner covers the whole screen! Luckily the log-in box is still visible so I log-in and the screen returns to the correct 1152x768. my Xorg.conf file is below. the lines starting ##### i've removed which improves things a little. # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@vernadsky) Thu Jun 5 09:26:53 UTC 2008 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" EndSection Section "Files" RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "extmod" Load "type1" Load "freetype" Load "glx" EndSection Section "ServerFlags" Option "Xinerama" "0" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "ADI GD-790T" HorizSync 30.0 - 110.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce4 MX 4000" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True" option "Composite" "Enabled" ##### Option "TwinView" "0" ##### Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0; 1152x768 +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection cheers paul Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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New computer.
by Torben Stones 04 Sep '08

04 Sep '08

Well last week my hard disk gave up the ghost. This is the first disk I've had that has actually died, the other two just started to produce loads of bad sectors and the SMART monitor gave me warning. But there was nothing with this drive, lucky I just backup most of the important stuff. Anyway enough of my rambling. I could just buy a new hard disk and get every thing up and running, but I just might use this as an excus to update my computer (It's 6-7 years old), and get something more up-to-date and hopefully more efficient. Finally my question. Has anyone got any experiance of the EffcientPC.co.uk guys? I was looking at the Flexible range that they do, and was wondering if I should go with the Camulus or Isis systems. The only difference is one is Intel/nVidia and the other is AMD/ATI (respectively) any thoughts? And finaly has AMD open sourced the ATI graphics drivers yet? I am right in thinking that they committed to that when the bought ATI, am I not? Anyway thanks for any thoughts. Torb -- You've got a lot of choices in your life. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.

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How to get USB mass storage devices to mount/unmount automatically?
by Chris G 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

I've been faffing around for a while trying to work out how to do this, without much success. Part of the trouble is that looking for USB and automount on Google comes up with lots of stuff about automount and that's a different beast altogether. I have fathomed out that it's something to do with HAL and udev. If I need to go and edit new entries into /etc/udev/rules.d then so be it but I suspect there's simpler, higher level ways of doing it. What I want is to be able to plug in my USB Mass Storage camera and get to see the pictures without any further hassle. At the moment I have to do a manual mount command (and in addition I regularly forget to umount it). I'm sure modern Linux systems should be able to automate this but I can't find out how at the moment. Can anyone point me at a good tutorial or tell me what I need to do? ..., Fedora 8, kernel 2.6.24 -- Chris Green

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I'm worried ...
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

Hi Folks, I just bought a couple of 1GB SODIMM DDR2 chips as a RAM upgrade. The product label states: Windows Vista Ready I'm worried now. Maybe it won't work with Linux :)! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 03-Sep-08 Time: 14:39:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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SSH - something I don't understand.
by Barry Samuels 02 Sep '08

02 Sep '08

My SSH is set up to work via a key only i.e. no logins. I can use SSH from my laptop to connect to my desktop over my home network with no problems however if I try it via the Internet, when away from home, I get 'access denied (Publickey)'. Would there be a known reason for that? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] SSH - something I don't understand.
by Barry Samuels 01 Sep '08

01 Sep '08

I have only just realised that the last two posts I had intended for the list were actually sent to Brett Parker by mistake. I wondered why they didn't appear in the list. :-)) The problem is now solved. There was a 'Host' section in the /etc/ssh/ ssh_config file on the laptop which started 'Host desktophostname' and changing that to 'Host desktophostname 192.168.0.1 123.234.345.456' cured the problem. 123.234.345.456 would be the IP address I use to connect, via the Internet, to my desktop at home when I'm away. I discovered that because if I changed the SSH command to use an IP address, even from my home network, instead of a host name I had the same problem. Brett suggested looking in the ssh_config file 'Host' section. I'd like to thank everyone who tried to help including ChrisG with his remarkable vocal powers (if Brett is to be believed). -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] What to do after being hacked?
by Sagr 01 Sep '08

01 Sep '08

Thanks to MJR, Wayne, Adrian, Dan and others who offered advice. We have now finished rebuilding my friend’s server and now the dust has settled and the anger and frustration has died down we have to admit it has not been a totally bad experience. It provided us with a good excuse, and opportunity, to reinstall everything from the ground up and made us realise what an enormous collection of no-longer-used scripts he had collected on his old machine; they were very handy at the time he installed them but he had forgotten to remove them once the need had passed. I guess it has taught us, through experience, that just because my friend updated his operating system nightly we should not assume that EVERYTHING is updated and safe as old, no longer unused, no longer supported, scripts installed for a particular one-off task and then forgotten about can easily be overlooked but become an easy target for hackers. I have a separate question about our experience but I had better start a new thread for that. Thanks to all for your wise advice, Sagr.

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What to do after being hacked?
by Sagr 31 Aug '08

31 Aug '08

A friend of mine recently had a visit from "The Audisoft Hacker Team of Chilean Defacers" who, apart from replacing his website with graffiti, placed a c99shell backdoor in an obscure directory. His visitors were kind enough to display their hacker alias names on the graffiti and, looking at log files, we have discovered the time the attack occurred and the IP Address from which it came also, after having a poke around his backup files, think we know the application they hacked to gain entry. So what do we do now? I suppose theoretically he should report it to some authority but neither of us knows to whom, nor do we suspect they would show the slightest interest even if we did. The backdoor has been placed in an obscure location which would only be known by the original hackers and associates they have told. It would be impossible to guess or stumble upon accidentally. We are therefore confident that anyone who visits this backdoor has illegal intentions. So what would ALUGers suggest we do? Being in mind anyone who tries to accesses the backdoor has illegal intentions, and from log files we notice most are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, we have had all kinds of evil thoughts about replacing the backdoor with some kind of infected software... but this would bring us down to their level and possibly also be illegal. It would however be interesting to replace the backdoor webpage with some software which is capable of more detailed logging of visitors. What would more experienced ALUGers do if they were in our situation? Is there any specific piece of logging (or other) software ALUGers would suggest we replace the backdoor with as it is still receiving visitors? Sagr. PS: The application the hackers used to gain entry was an old piece of software he had forgotten was still on his website and so we haven't bothered to put it back on.

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Nokia N810 - any experience?
by Chris G 31 Aug '08

31 Aug '08

I'm looking for some sort of GPS/PDA set up for logging walking/cycling and to provide directions for when I'm riding my motorbike. One suggestion is the Nokia 810 which is Linux based so that's an extra plus. Does anyone here have any experience of this device? For a start how big is it, I can't see this information in any of the adverts. -- Chris Green

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How to automatically check for changes to a website
by Sagr 29 Aug '08

29 Aug '08

As ALUGers may be aware; a friend of mine recently had his website defaced by hackers. This has made me realise how seldomly I, myself, actually check my own website to see if it is still as it should be. Bearing in mind my own website is quite static, only being updated once a month or so, checking it would seem an ideal task for automation. I would guess I am not the only person on the planet who doesn’t have time to regularly check their website for defacement and was wondering if any experienced ALUGers could recommend a ready made script which I could run on my home server which would enable me to compare my live website (on a remote commercial webhost) with a stored image of it (on my local server) a couple of times a day. Do other ALUGers bother to check their own websites for defacement regularly? If so what tools do you use? Sagr.

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IPTables and Me - they don't mix.
by Barry Samuels 29 Aug '08

29 Aug '08

My setup: Debian Testing (up to date) Kernel 2.6.24 My router has a firewall with the SSH port open. I run a FireStarter software firewall, which blocks SSH access, on my computer together with Knockd. Knockd runs a script which adds or deletes an IPTables rule to allow SSH access. The knockd script part works insamuch as it adds the required rule. The problem is that the firewall on my computer still blocks SSH access. This is so that I can access my computer when away from home and that's the only time I can test or try it consequently it's all rather long winded. SSH access is by key only and login is prohibited. First I added a rule to allow SSH access using the FireStarter GUI interface then I had a look at an IPTables listing to see what it had generated. I used that rule in my knockd script. The next time I went away I found that it didn't work - I still couldn't get access. The last rule I tried I had modified myself after reading the man pages and that didn't work either. So I'm now stumped. This is my last effort: iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22:22 -m state --state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 22:22 -m state --state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT I don't know whether the UDP rule is required but I thought it wouldn't do any harm. If anyone can point out what I'm doing wrong I'd be most grateful. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Mobile Linux, more thoughts and questions
by mark fernandes (IFR) 28 Aug '08

28 Aug '08

<UNLURK> I've got an Asus EEEPC (701) which I use with a 3G Mobile Broadband USB dongle (HUAWEI E220). I just used the add network wizard and followed the prompts and voila! it was setup. Works quite well (even on the train - Useful when stuck on Norwich to London line!). I have had minor problems with random disconnects but I suspect that this is to do with mobile coverage and contention. Works well enough for casual web-browsing and e-mail (which is what I use it for). Suspect may not be up for beefier things like iplayer etc. :-) Hope that this is helpful, Mark </UNLURK>

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Mobile Linux, more thoughts and questions
by Chris G 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

Having looked at the Nokia N810 (reviews etc.) I've decided it probably doesn't offer the mix I really want. In particular it lacks phone capability (i..e. it has no SIM) so I'd need to carry a phone as well as the N810 which seems a bit silly. So I'm still kicking ideas around, I'm after GPS ability (for logging and for motorbike), a mobile phone and mobile computing which, for me, essentially boils down to being able to make an ssh connection through the mobile phone data connection. A browser for Googling would be nice but is less essential. I think this probably looks like several devices with a mobile phone and a data connection at the centre. Does anyone here use a mobile phone data connection with an Asus EEEPC, is it easy to set up and usable? If it was then it gives me a much nice keyboard for ssh than any keyboard on a smartphone or whatever. Alternatively a smartphone (like a Treo 680) with ssh installed would work too, much more difficult keyboard but more portable. Any other ideas, comments, etc. regarding getting a "terminal on a mobile phone" that's usable, portable and cheap? Once I've decided the neatest solution to the above I can add a GPS logger easily enough and I suspec the motorbike GPS navigation just ends up as a separate device. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Mobile Linux, more thoughts and questions
by James Elsey 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

What about the iPhone? I don't have one myself, but I hear there is quite a selection of applications for it, and it has built in GPS I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already figured out how to put linux on it... -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Chris G Sent: 27 August 2008 14:47 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Mobile Linux, more thoughts and questions Having looked at the Nokia N810 (reviews etc.) I've decided it probably doesn't offer the mix I really want. In particular it lacks phone capability (i..e. it has no SIM) so I'd need to carry a phone as well as the N810 which seems a bit silly. So I'm still kicking ideas around, I'm after GPS ability (for logging and for motorbike), a mobile phone and mobile computing which, for me, essentially boils down to being able to make an ssh connection through the mobile phone data connection. A browser for Googling would be nice but is less essential. I think this probably looks like several devices with a mobile phone and a data connection at the centre. Does anyone here use a mobile phone data connection with an Asus EEEPC, is it easy to set up and usable? If it was then it gives me a much nice keyboard for ssh than any keyboard on a smartphone or whatever. Alternatively a smartphone (like a Treo 680) with ssh installed would work too, much more difficult keyboard but more portable. Any other ideas, comments, etc. regarding getting a "terminal on a mobile phone" that's usable, portable and cheap? Once I've decided the neatest solution to the above I can add a GPS logger easily enough and I suspec the motorbike GPS navigation just ends up as a separate device. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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Routing table via DHCP on Fedora
by Dan Hatton 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

Dear All, The dhcp-options manpage says `NOTE to Fedora dhclient users: dhclient-script interprets trailing 0 octets of the target as indi- cating the subnet class of the route, so for the following static- routes value: option static-routes 172.0.0.0 172.16.2.254, 192.168.0.0 192.168.2.254; dhclient-script will create routes: 172/8 via 172.16.2.254 dev $interface 192.168/16 via 192.168.2.254 dev $interface' If I suspect that I'm getting a messed up routing table (i.e. not what the DHCP server administrator intended) as a result of this, what should I do to diagnose and/or fix it? -- Thanks, Dan

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19" CRT Monitor, Free to a good home!
by Simon Elliott 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

Hello everyone, I've got a 19" Dell CRT Monitor... Don't have the space for it any more. It runs a pretty nifty 1280x1024, still in good working order and it's just sitting in my living room. My landlord wants me to get rid of it, anyone want it? http://www.flickr.com/photos/sionide/2801352124/ If you can come and collect it, you can have it! NR1 3AY, email me if you want it :)

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EeePC battery runs down ...
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 23 Aug '08

23 Aug '08

Hi Folks, Knowing there are a few Eee PC owners out there, I'd like to compare notes on the following. I have a standard Eee PC 900 (Linux) with the standard ASUS battery. I've observed that if the machine is "powered off" (via the GUI: logoff -> shutdown) when the battery is fully charged, a few days later the battery may be substantially discharged (e.g. currently at 20%, on a previous occasion dead flat). Might this be due to slow internal leakage in the battery? Might the computer in fact be quietly ticking over in the background even though nominally "shut down"? Would a different battery make a difference? Just a few questions -- I'd be interested in what others think. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 23-Aug-08 Time: 18:09:03 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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CSS question, just a bug/quirk or what?
by Chris G 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

I wanted tables with no borders at all, after mucking around for a while with the CSS I found that:- table.docutils, td, th { border: 0 } works, but that:- table.docutils td th { border: 0 } doesn't work. According to CSS documentation those commas are wrong but they've made it work for me. Is this just a quirk of Firefox (2.0.0.12 on Linux) or am I missing something (quite likely!)? -- Chris Green

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Open source bluecasting software for linux
by Mandy Young 19 Aug '08

19 Aug '08

Hello Everybody, Does anyone out there know anything about the hardware suitable and if there is any open source software available for bluecasting that will run on a linux server? I have checked around and I can only find companies that offer a complete service for Windows. Thanks, Mandy. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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