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Help me to help someone!
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 07 Jul '07

07 Jul '07

Hi Folks, There's a thread on the Zen Support Forum, Linux Division, with title "Setting screen res in Ubuntu 7.04". The start of the thread is at http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/thread/27097.aspx The topic has somewhat moved on from that, and the OP (Ken Odlum)'s problem is now that, using Ubuntu, while he apparently has two hard disks, one of which he can use normally, he can only read from the other and not write to it. This problem is first mentioned at http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27130/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#27130 and followed up at http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27151/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#27151 I ("eelman") intervened acouple of posts later, with suggestions 'cat /etc/fstab' etc. It seems he's dome this, and now http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27219/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#27219 he says "If I go to Places Computer it shows the other hard drive and I can mount it and read or copy from it OK" despite the fact that it's not in /etc/fstab. The only thing I can think of is that when he does that, whetever Ubuntu does behind the scenes amounts to an explicit mount -t ... /dev/hdb* /... command. But, not having any Ubuntu eperience, I simply don't know. If anyone can make a useful suggestio I could pass on, or better still is on the Zen Support Forum and can intervene directly, this would be welcome. The guy is a relatively recent convert to Linux, and I wouldn't like his faith to be compromised! 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: 04-Jul-07 Time: 23:01:47 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Help me to help someone!
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 05 Jul '07

05 Jul '07

Thanks, Mark -- interesting that you;ve had the same experience. The only issue (see end of you first para) is that he can read from it, but not write to it. On 05-Jul-07 08:37:59, Mark Reid wrote: > Dear Ted > > This is an interesting one. As you correctly point out, Linux has > not recognised hdb when it was installed for whatever reason that > may have been. I must say that I had exactly the same problem when > I first used Ubuntu a year ago. He can access it through Nautilus > which suggests that even though it is not registered on startup, > it's recognised as being there much in the way that removable > drive l would be when it's plugged in. That's why he can mount it > using the mount command in Nautilus and then read and write to it. > > What should solve the problem is if he adds the hdb to the fstab after > he has backed the old one up, which is what I did and what I think is > what you suggested and he hasn't done yet. The issue there being the UID identification, rather then the traditional "/dev/hdb*". Wayne made a suggestion for finding out what the UID code ought to be. Any further comments from anyone would be most welcome! > > An easier way for a beginner to do this is to open a root terminal > through the menu, clicking on Accessories (or System Tools ) > Root > Terminal and entering the command gedit which will get him to the gui > based editor as root user. I've only recently upgraded to Edgy myself > and what's new in the way Ubuntu now does fstab entries is putting in a > UUID value which it didn't in pervious distros. In entering values > for hdb manually, I'm not sure whether absence of a UUID would make any > difference to the operation of fstab. > > Regards > > Mark > > (Ted Harding) wrote: >> Hi Folks, >> There's a thread on the Zen Support Forum, Linux Division, >> with title "Setting screen res in Ubuntu 7.04". The start >> of the thread is at >> >> http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/thread/27097.aspx >> >> The topic has somewhat moved on from that, and the OP (Ken >> Odlum)'s problem is now that, using Ubuntu, while he apparently >> has two hard disks, one of which he can use normally, he can >> only read from the other and not write to it. This problem >> is first mentioned at >> >> http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27130/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#271 >> 30 >> >> and followed up at >> >> http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27151/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#271 >> 51 >> >> I ("eelman") intervened acouple of posts later, with suggestions >> 'cat /etc/fstab' etc. It seems he's dome this, and now >> >> http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/27097/27219/permalink/ShowThread.aspx#272 >> 19 >> >> he says "If I go to Places Computer it shows the other hard drive >> and I can mount it and read or copy from it OK" despite the fact >> that it's not in /etc/fstab. >> >> The only thing I can think of is that when he does that, whetever >> Ubuntu does behind the scenes amounts to an explicit >> >> mount -t ... /dev/hdb* /... >> >> command. But, not having any Ubuntu eperience, I simply don't know. >> >> If anyone can make a useful suggestio I could pass on, or better >> still is on the Zen Support Forum and can intervene directly, this >> would be welcome. The guy is a relatively recent convert to Linux, >> and I wouldn't like his faith to be compromised! >> >> 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: 04-Jul-07 Time: 23:01:47 >> ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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! >> >> > > -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 05-Jul-07 Time: 15:15:00 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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evolution, squirrelmail and addressbook
by Jenny Hopkins 05 Jul '07

05 Jul '07

Hullo there, Is it possible to export a contacts database in evolution in a format that can then be imported into squirrelmail? Evolution seem only to offer VCard export. Squirrelmail doesn't seem to offer any mass import at all (on debian anyway), but I can see the address file is a text file with the fields separated with a |. It would be possible to write a bit of code that does this, but I'm sure someone has done it already :) Thanks, Jenny

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kubuntu apt-get not installed
by elc 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

kubuntu apt-get not installed. Currently running Feisty Fawn 7.04 On booting up, my boot-up flash screen comes up. About halfway thru boot-up the flash screen chages to text (terminal or Bash Screen ?), where I can see the various aspects of the boot-up loading. It gets to a point "the program 'apt-get' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: apt-get install apt When I type 'apt-get install apt', I get Bash: apt-get command not found, - and then the next line puts me at my root home directory with a flashing curser ready for my input. I've also tried sudo apt-get install apt and the results are the same. What I am trying to get to is my normal GUI or desktop. Your help please - elc

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protecting children on linux
by Richard Bensley 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

Good afternoon everyone. The bane of my existence from working in IT are my co-workers. I am sure many of can relate to questions such as "Which broadband supplier shall I use?", or "My dell is full of shit, and spyware, and viruses after the kids downloaded MSN". So long as they have the original restore CD's I don't mind doing it for a small fee, outside of working hours. I have had several cases also where I have been recommending and installing Open Source goodies like Firefox, and OpenOffice, and of course the results are always good! At some point I want to try to and convince a co-worker to let me put something like Ubuntu on their machine. Whilst they wont need some bloated Anti Virus suite, said suites also contain tools to help protect their kids from the darker side of the Internet. What does Linux offer to help censor and protect children from what the Internet has to offer? Richard

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Re: [ALUG] UK VoIP Providers
by samwise 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

On 28/06/07, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> wrote: > Hey there Peter, did you mean to post this to the list ? Yes. *blush* On Thu, 2007-06-28 at 11:33 +0100, samwise wrote: > On 28/06/07, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-06-28 at 10:36 +0100, Ben Francis wrote: > > > > > > > > I'm thinking of buying the Grandstream BT-101 from them for £45 > > > (http://www.sipgate.co.uk/voipshop/grandstream/grandstream_bt-101) but > > > until the expenses claim goes through I'll be playing with softphones. > > > > > Having tried both and despite it being circa £20 more I would still > > recommend the Aastra. > > I tried a Grandstream GXP-2000 out - the build quality of the PSU and > cable was particularly poor. The phone itself was alright. Biggest > problem with it that I found was that it wasn't possible to dial > alphanumeric SIP URIs without prior configuration from a PC. Which > was quite rubbish, I thought! Oh, and it wouldn't work with my usual > STUN server so I had to try another one ... > > If you can afford it, I've generally found the Linksys / Cisco gear to > be very feature-rich and well-built. Bit pricey, tho. > > Peter.

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UK VoIP Providers
by Ben Francis 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Hi all, Does anyone have recommendations of UK based VoIP providers? I'm looking for a service with the following kinds of features: * Standards based (SIP) * A PSTN phone number pointing at my SIP account (preferably with a choosable area code) * Outward calls to PSTN at good rates (national, international and mobile) * Dynamic call forwarding (e.g. forward to my mobile at certain times or after a certain number of rings) * Voicemail (preferably with email alerts) I'm really very attracted to Vonage (http://vonage.com) but there's one thing that bothers me. If you want a "softphone" you have to pay for their proprietary service at extra cost and they don't support third party (i.e. open source) alternatives. This rules out using my own SIP client or installing an open source PBX (Asterisk) in the future. They say they're looking at opening up the service but they can't give a timescale. Thanks! Ben -- Ben Francis http://tola.me.uk

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Blender Tutorial
by Richard Bensley 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Good Morning everyone, On the 14Th of July I will be holding an introductory course to the opensource 3D application, Blender. If you are interested then please respond here so I can get a good idea about the numbers and suitable locations (will be somewhere in Norwich). On the following Monday, the 16Th of July, I will be giving a brief rundown of the same session at the IPLUG meeting for those that can't make the trip to Norwich (providing Mr Bower's car is fixed :D ). Currently I am working on a 4 hour(ish) lesson plan. I will be giving a introduction to the basics of blender, an intro to polygon modelling, and finally some animation. After that I wouldn't mind showing off some fluids, dynamics, and particles, as well as showing off some of the sculpting, compositing, video editing, and painting tools. If there is anything you guys would like to learn about in Blender or in 3D in general I am open to suggestions as to what else you would like to achieve on that day. Other linux based CGI apps I am (reasonably) familiar with and able to answer some basic questions on include: Maya, Softimage, Nuke, Wings3D, Gimp, Houdini, and Shake. I am doing this first of all as a test. Depending on the success on the event both in my ability to teach, and people able to attend may mean I do a few more maybe at the UEA, but one step at a time! Cheers Richard

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kubuntu apt-get not installed
by elc 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

No - still unable to gain entry. I'm now about to do major surgery, overinstall or re-install, since I have nothing to lose. However, many thanks for trying to resolve my probs. ps Is there a linux equivalent of Thunderbird Portable ? elc Ten wrote > Hi - did you get your issues sorted? > > My thinking was that your problem might be related to several flavours of > weirdness with ubuntu upgrades - where you can get either a munged fstab > through the upgrade conversion or a strange problem with the system trying to > use the wrong root partition after a kernel upgrade. > > Hope you did, anyway. > > Cheers.

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Re: [ALUG] IPLUG meetings
by samwise 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

> So, now there are 3 facebook groups for ALUG. I don't get to say this > very often, so excuse me: UTFS! Gah, I did! I searched the mailing list archives and the wiki for a mention of Facebook and then Facebook for "anglian linux user group" and got nothing! *sigh* Are there any other ALUG things out there being played with we might want to get in on? > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2352779871 > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 > > Feel free to merge yours with either of those ;) I've closed mine now... are we going to standardise on one of these two? I have no idea which one came first and they both seem to have around the same number of members, tho the first one is the only one publically searchable ... Peter.

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style syntax
by Nick Atkins 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Would anyone be able to tell me why the following in-line style code does not work on IE6 or IE7? - the link colours do not render properly. It works fine on firefox and netscape7 and half works on safari. <HTML> <style type="text/css"> a:link, a:visited {color : white} a:hover {color : red} </style> <a href="http://cloudesley.org" > <img src="/images/cloudesley.org.png"> </a> </HTML> The result can be viewed here: http://cloudesley.org/new.html Many thanks. -- Nick Atkins

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User group meeting last night
by Ruth Bygrave 24 Jun '07

24 Jun '07

Alas, I didn't find what I was really looking for (very beginner hobbyist scripter to talk to about where to start)...but I enjoyed it hugely anyway, until the conversation at the end reminded me that scripting is really the province of Real Developers and Not Idiots Like Me...cause I didn't understand half of it! [long boring bit about why I want to try it anyway] My approach for why I want to dip a cautious toe into scripting is that what put me off Windows was that there was an infinite amount of choice in software but it was so commercially-driven that if what you wanted to do wasn't commercial it wouldn't exist. The Windows approach is, if you want to do something that isn't there out of the box, buy something. So what you eventually end up with is infinite numbers of programs that do the same as the other programs. You end up with a range of choice that is five million fishknives when you opened the drawer for a soup spoon. I doubt I could become a big professional developer doing big things, ever. I could see myself one day (in five years' or so's time, if I'm lucky) doing tiny back- bedroom projects as shareware or open-source, that started out as what I felt frustrated by not having on my computer -- and gain small amounts of money and big amounts of fun! My problem is that I feel very wary of talking to Professional Developers For Whom It Is Their Day Job. Not that they'd be at all unfriendly, but what would they gain from talking to Dumb Script Kiddie Who Iz A Idiot, as opposed to what I would gain, which is education and which I have the uneasy feeling I should actually be paying for (except that whenever I look up IT training I see big commercial operations that charge £700 for a week's training... which isn't really what I'm looking for). And I know Adrian's approach is that computer science courses at school (what I'd probably get if I looked at adult-ed, except the adult-ed courses aren't up yet at Suffolk College?) are generally rubbish at teaching people to program, and he's much brighter than I am. And I know my past is littered with failed attempts to learn simple programming (C++, VB, Delphi, XSLT...), which lasted until I tripped over Applescript when I switched, downloaded a bunch of free scripts, and managed to get over the mental block that there was nothing I wanted to *do* that I could find out how to do in real programming. So I'm at the point where I want to take a bit of a step back from clipping Mac apps together and come back to it later, and start more from-the-ground- up. But I don't want to bother Real Professional Developers because, they have coding at their day job and almost certainly don't want to give me a free education in their spare time (I get the feeling poor Adrian doesn't, especially since his spare-time recreation is currently rock-climbing and coding is his Work). And I certainly couldn't pay for an expensive education, especially the hundreds-of- pounds one!) So I'll go back to doing scripting on my own, reading books and posting snippets of bad code on the internet... (Incidentally, if anybody wants to read my silly personal-reactions- to-starting-scripting blog, it's at macrubyist.livejournal.com but so far it has about 4 readers. Am uneasily beginning to wonder if I'm not *quite* as chatty & entertaining as I think I am. And I have a bit of a problem with being *too* chatty and discursive, viz this note) [end boring bit about me, sorry, was a bit of a vent there but I just feel so *isolated* sometimes!] OTOH, the general idea that I could use the local Mac user groups for my consumer/user chatting and questions (about Mac-specific apps) and ALUG for geek-fu social chatting, validation that using Unix isn't actually Completely Insane, and learning about the open-source end of Darwin, sounds like it would work marvellously. And if anybody could help me sort out my Samba mixed-network problem that all Mac users look blankly at and say But It Just Works (even if it involves Pain & use of CUPS), that would be cool, although suspect that will have to wait until the About Mixed Networks meeting. Suspect am out on a limb a bit -- may be the only person in the entire universe who's too geeky to be *quite* a Mac-consumer and too dumb to be *quite* a winux lizard :-) But thanks for listening, anyway. I promise I'll start to shut up now, but suspect needed to vent after having nobody to talk to F2F about what I was thinking about for the last six months (as in, Adrian doesn't want to talk about Evil Devil-Languages, and has seen me fail a bunch of times at learning programming anyway, none of my friends do this stuff, and I've never found any hobbyist programmers at the same Dumb But Finally Actually Enthusiastic stage I'm at now...) R

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Re: [ALUG] IPLUG meetings
by samwise 23 Jun '07

23 Jun '07

On 22/06/07, Yvonne Everett <ye103910(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi > > I see from the meeting notes for monday of last week that the homework > was to do 3 things. The 2nd item however (spend a day without using > the top five search engines) has me wondering what the top five are? > I can think of google, yahoo, altavista.... Who are the others? > > Von Ahh, my bad - should probably have specified that: Google, Yahoo!, MSN / Windows Live, Ask or AOL are the biggest five search engines (tho we're being kind including AOL on there ... :) I've updated the meeting notes entry too, with a link to the top 100 alternative search engines list for this month too, if you want to experiment! http://altsearchengines.com/2007/06/06/the-top-100-alternative-search-engin… Peter.

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Idle question about keyboard bindings
by Ruth Bygrave 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

One of the things that drives me insane about OS X is that I actually had to download a tiny home-made hack to get the keyboard layout I was used to (" on shift-2, @ next to ;, # next to return). Apple's idea of a British keyboard is: £ on shift 3, but all the others of those keys in what I think of as 'American' places. Adrian and I both instantly thought this was to do with Apple having such an identity as a Californian company it's too arrogant to get its localisations right. I whinged about this at the local Mac user group, and they all said it was the normal British keyboard layout. Is this because: a) the Mac users are not touch-typists. b) the Mac users grew up to use computers on the Mac platform, so they assume the Apple way is the normal way (my 'Apple imperialism' argument) or c) Adrian and I both spent 20 years on MS platforms before I switched to Mac, and the Mac users are right (their 'MS imperialism' argument). If any of you can remember the layout for typewriters before the IBM PC came along, it might settle the question, but also some of you are touch-typists and you're not using a MS platform, so that's another way of thinking about it. Who's right? Regards, R

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Library update
by Wayne Stallwood 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Peter's (samwise) generous donation of 14 books (mostly O'Reilly titles) has now been added to the library collection. Existing registered users of the Library can log in and see the new titles added by clicking the link under the What's new section on the front page. http://ccgi.digimatic.plus.com/opendb/ For those of you who don't have a Library account you can follow the sign me up! link on the login screen to generate a borrower account. Also please remember that all existing users and any new users now have the facility to add their own books to the collection, essentially offering them for loan whilst still keeping them in your possession. However I take no responsibility for the safe return of these books, the agreement to return them undamaged is between the lender and the borrower all the Library can do is send gentle reminders of overdue books (if the lender has specified a maximum loan duration)

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Coder/codong services wanted
by Laurie Brown 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Hi Folks, We have an important client in desperate need of a php/mysql coder, with some specific tasks to be completed. We've lost our usual incumbent, who was a freelancer, but we don't mind if this is a freelancer, or a small local company: quality and flexibility is the key. Interested parties please contact me by email at: laurie.brown_at_convergent-ict.com Cheers, Laurie. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Aha!
by Ruth Bygrave 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Suddenly realised what to do with the discursive/nattery thing about the endless rambling conversations both here and on my blog due to suddenly having A Social Life for the first time in years. Because I know *exactly* how annoying it is to have someone who's likeable and sympathetic and *won't shut up", because by now I've been on enough lists where that's happened. I should type into or clip into the LJ client, post it private, and squint and chop at it until it's slightly less overwhelming -- then e- mail it somewhere or blog it. It's a 'discipline problem', and the answer is achievable once I start lifting my fingers from the keyboard rather than posting 50 paragraphs at a time... Regards, R

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Apologies, all
by Ruth Bygrave 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

As you may have guessed, I'm hammering the keyboard far too much out of sheer relief at finding anyone to talk to about cross-platform issues that isn't welded to You Must Use A Mac vs You Must Use A PC, and having felt terribly isolated for the past n years. So I *am* sorry, I *am* trying to rein in my ramblingness, and I *will* find my level after a while and settle down a bit. Incidentally, my last too-long-and-rambling message told me it was thinking of bouncing because of a 'suspicious header'. What stupid thing does that mean I was doing? Regards, Ruth

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Re: [ALUG] Anybody else ever tried fast-user-switching as context-switching?
by Ruth Bygrave 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

On 20 Jun 2007, at 13:53, Richard Bensley wrote: > I have been a bit busy, so I am just scanning the list, but yes you > would find a lot better help in general with Linux guys and gals, and > since OSX is UNIX, you will find many including myself are mac users. Yes! I feel so validated! > I was surprised to find out MUGs even existed! My immediate reaction had been "I am now on the Mac platform, I need to find out where the Mac users are". But I kept falling over the advocacy-zealotry and the fact that everybody within 60 miles or so of me seemed to be Mac-ghetto rather than my (admittedly-untypical) switch pattern of "20 years Windows followed by crash-and-burn Linux switch-unswitch, followed by more Windows, followed by: what I actually want is Gorgeous Consumer Stuff and consistent UI to feed the dumb user and Unix to feed the beginner geekery. I shall get a Mac" I hasten to add that I did not crash-and-burn on Linux because I think it's invariably a Worse Operating System for Everyone than the others, but because I switched too early and far too fast with no advice or local support, and unswitched. Am currently giving advice on LJ to a Mac user thinking of Linux dual-boot that she will almost certainly find it an unrewarding experience because dual-boot works for almost nobody (I'm fairly sure that this is likely to be the case for Macintel as well, but have no actual data as my box is G4), and that she'd have far more luck buying a cheap secondhand laptop for Linux 'play' and 'switching sideways' so that she can retreat to the user-comfort-zone between fits of geek-fu. > Our meetings are the second Thursday of every month int he Reindeer > Pub > (dereham road) in norwich, but there is also an Ipswich group which > meet > every 3rd Monday I think?!? But of course you and Adrian would be most > welcome, conversations and topics (as you have proven) are vast! Went to the Ips group this week, and noticed that even though I couldn't get any help with the problem I _thought_ I was going for, the group is a far better fit for me personally than ghetto-Mac. May consider coming to the Norwich group for social reasons if I haven't frightened you off yet :-) Regards, Ruth

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clamav on etch and cpu usage
by Jenny Hopkins 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Hullo there, Our server is running nearly constantly at 100% cpu usage, the culprit being clamscan. Server is running debian stable, so clamav version is 0.90.1-2 I see a bug reported here http://bugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=425661 which seems to be for a later version so there's not much point in upgrading clamav. Has anyone else had similar? Should I 'downgrade'? Thanks, Jenny

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IPLUG meetings
by Yvonne Everett 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Hello Any reason why the Ipswich Meeting Notes havent been updated for the last couple of months on the ALUG Wiki? Rgds -- Yvonne Everett Email: ye103910(a)googlemail.com

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Don't suppose any others of you have got a Toppy PVR, have you?
by Ruth Bygrave 21 Jun '07

21 Jun '07

Ruth (...I love my Toppy, except when the UI drives me batshit insane...) B

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Linux and Astronomy
by Yvonne Everett 20 Jun '07

20 Jun '07

Hello Those astronomy fans out there... does anyone have a recommendation for a replacment to the software Celestron Registax? I have a NexImage and the software enclosed with it is for Windows. If anyone has any experience of this type of webcam through Linux and what they've used, I'd be interested to hear your comments/results... Thanks and regards -- Yvonne Everett Email: ye103910(a)googlemail.com

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LJ
by Ruth Bygrave 20 Jun '07

20 Jun '07

Aha! Enlightenment moment (again). Instead of running about two-and-a- half blogs, I should roll everything into one and experiment with 'custom friends groups' until I get the behaviour I want: mundane friends and relatives don't see the not-personal stuff, Unix geeks don't see the dumb-user Mac stuff (unless they want to), only the creative-writers I'm in touch with see the SF-fan and writing stuff, and people can ask to be added if they just, like, like me? Does that make sense? It would have the huge virtue of not running separate user accts to achieve separation, and being able to stay logged-in consistently. But is it reliable/secure? Regards, Ruth

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Anybody else ever tried fast-user-switching as context-switching?
by Ruth Bygrave 20 Jun '07

20 Jun '07

On both Mac and Windows, Fast User Switching is implemented and used as 'Mum Dad and all the kiddies can now get to their stuff quickly'. Am fairly sure that this is a 'Unix-y thing', though cannot remember if I used to play with it in Linux in my abortive crash-and-burn attempt to switch to Linux in 1999. I started out on the Mac trying to use this as context-switching (it's entirely my machine, I can use it in whatever demented geeky way I like). I found that the 2-3 seconds it took to switch between my main user acct and my creative writing acct effectively put me off using it. The other day, when setting up a blog for my 'Dumb Script Kiddy tries to grow up hobbyist-programmer' stuff, I suddenly realised that the reason it took me 2 or 3 seconds to switch to my creative writing acct was probably because Skype was in the startup items and Skype is a resource hog. Because context-switching between my main user acct and my blog acct (with nothing but mail and news loaded) fairly *flew!* This actually started me thinking of going back to the idea with minimal programs loaded. I asked Adrian if he's ever thought of using FUS as context-switching. "No," he said. He has different contexts: work, social, climbing, &c, but the immediacy of having e-mail immediately available pulling everything together and the fact that you don't see the e-mail coming in from the other acct means that trying to organise it the way I was thinking of, wouldn't work. Have been trying it as 'geek fun', but actually fear Adrian may be right, because the 'oops, in wrong context, e-mail this to the other acct' thing is all too easy to achieve. Would you advise me to keep trying it as a playful geeky thing or get in the habit of having everything on my main acct because of this real-world 'notification' issue that Adrian pointed out? Regards, Ruth

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