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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 07 Aug '06

07 Aug '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Web maintenance via the web - good tools?
by cl＠isbd.net 05 Aug '06

05 Aug '06

I am using TWiki to enable me to maintain some web pages remotely. While it does a fairly good job it's not the ideal tool because it's designed for co-operative use. There's lots of TWiki that I don't need:- Version management Multi-user management There's some bits I really like:- Simple formatting (easier than full HTML) Simple links There's some things I'd like that it doesn't have:- Scripting and dynamic HTML I'm sure there's others but I can't think what at the moment Is there something out there designed for web site writing and maintenance via the web that might fulfil my 'single user' requirements better? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Updating Redhat 9 system
by Mark Rogers 05 Aug '06

05 Aug '06

I'm trying to update a RedHat 9 system that's not been updated in a while. If I try: up2date -u I get: RPM package conflict error. The message was: Test install failed because of package conflicts: package krb5-libs-1.3.1-1 (which is newer than krb5-libs-1.2.7-14) is already installed How do I get past this? [FWIW: This server is a development server with lots of Apache vhosts, MySQL databases and not a lot else. It is only ever accessed via SSH/http/samba.] -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Digital TV Card
by Nick Daniels 05 Aug '06

05 Aug '06

On Saturday 05 August 2006 10:19, Alan Pope wrote: > On Sat, Aug 05, 2006 at 09:38:23AM +0100, Nick Daniels wrote: > > Hi > > Can anyone reccomemed a digital TV Card for > > use with Linux. > > I have two Freecom DVB-T USB sticks which work well under Ubuntu Dapper. > > Cheers, > Al. >I have heard good things about this one >http://www.mediaatlantic.com/product.php/25397/1/ >I have a WinTV-HVR900 personally (but I have never managed to get this >to work on Linux, even though it is supposed to be possible) Many thanks for replies: I have a very old Win TV card, which worked until I installed Suse 10.1, but since it no longer works in Ubuntu either I assume it is dead. Since I intend to dual boot Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop / Ubuntu, I will give the Freecom a try. Kind Regards - Nick Daniels

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SDRam
by David Reynolds 05 Aug '06

05 Aug '06

Hi, Does anyone happen to have any spare PC133 or PC100 SDRAM laying around that they don't need? A small amount would be ok - 64MB or so, although the more the better ;) Cheers, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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wireless community network in norwich
by Adam Bower 01 Aug '06

01 Aug '06

Hi all, I saw a small bit on the news today about a community wireless network being setup in Norwich and going live from today. A bit of googling and digging around shows that the homepage for the project is here: http://www.norfolkopenlink.com/index.htm Looks like they're going to fund it only until April 2008, so in which case I sense that it's been a big waste of money already as the total cost for the project is 1.1 million... my personl idea would have been they could have wifi enabled all the libraries in Norfolk for less than that and still had some money over to offer a few hotspots over other places in the county and provide funding for them for much longer than less than 2 years. Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li Avoid ID cards, renew your passport: http://www.renewforfreedom.org/

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SpamAssasin and gocr/jocr
by Mark Rogers 31 Jul '06

31 Jul '06

Has anyone here experimented with defeating imgae-based spam using something like gocr (jocr.sf.net)? I've seen one attempt (http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/OcrPlugin) but I've not tried it (I'm not convinced by the method it uses, since it uses a fixed word list). My thought was that it ought to be simple to automatically OCR any image attachment and add some headers to the email containing the image text, then have SA check those headers for content (does SA check headers?) That way any words appearing in the image that have previously been seen in spam as plain text will get caught. It also occurred to me that OCR accuracy might not be too important. After all, if the same image spam is seem multiple times and marked as spam, then the OCR misinterpretations of the words will be common to each scan even if the words found are wrong. However, I have no real idea how to go about implementing this. -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 31 Jul '06

31 Jul '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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20" monitor to go!
by Guy Eastwood 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

I have a CTX 20.5" (according to the measuring tape) CRT monitor I want the get rid of - is an EX1300F I think. Worked perfectly last time it was used, I just want the space back! If anyone is interested let me know.. I'd appreciate a few quid for it as it wasn't cheap when originally bought. New owner to collect from me in Sutton (next to Stalham, NR12). If anyone is interested mail me an offer! G

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USB Hubs
by Bob Dove 26 Jul '06

26 Jul '06

Hi folks, Re USB Hubs. In the early days of USB - 1.1 I think - I had a hub that had its own power supply. This was used for a sort while 'til I got fed up and installed USB 2 card. Later silly boxes equipped with USB 2 anyway. I have two hubs - free gifts with software - mainly to make it easier to plug devices rather than the tangle of wires (worse than Hi-Fi) at back of machines. These are unpowered and everything I have connected (printer, scanner, external drives) work well except the external drives are slow when compared to those inside the box. Cheers, Bob Dove.

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USB again: input devices and hubs
by MJ Ray 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Does anyone here know how to 'tie' a particular input device to a particular window? I'd like my usb keyboard to work one particular window, rather than be a general X input device. Which USB are good buys right now and do any *not* work with Linux's EHCI/OHCI driver? (I ask because when I don't get a recommendation, I seem to buy the most awkward hardware available...) Thanks in advance, -- MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 24 Jul '06

24 Jul '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Re: [ALUG] usb woes
by Rob Page 23 Jul '06

23 Jul '06

I'd ruled this out because I was expecting it to cause overly nasty disruption to mouse movement, however it is nowhere near as bad as I'd expected, even set to reload every 2 seconds, but i'm trying another mouse at the moment, which *seems* to be working (so far) Thanks! Rob. On 7/22/06, Richard Lewis <richardlewis(a)fastmail.co.uk> wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:03:32 +0000, "Rob Page" <page.rob(a)gmail.com> > said: > > Unloading > > and reloading the usbhid module gets it working again, but this is an > > absolute pain. Also, killing X also gets it working again... > > > > Anyone have any idea what I can do to make it work? > > > What about a cron job which reloads the usbhid module once a minute? ;-) > > Richard. > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > Richard Lewis > Sonic Arts Research Archive > http://www.sara.uea.ac.uk/ > JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > >

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Toshiba 4030CDT & Linux
by Simon Royal 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Hi I am after some advice. I haven't posed a message to the list as I was waiting for a newer laptop. I now have a Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT with 128MB of RAM, it is a Pentium Celeron 300Mhz. What is the best way to go with Linux. I don't want to use DSL as I would like something a little higher spec. I like Ubuntu but I think it will run a little slow on this machine. I would like to dual boot it with Windows 2000 which is already installed so what do I need to do. Simon

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usb woes
by Rob Page 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Hello Aluggers! My usb mouse is being a pain. To be honest, this system has had all sorts of usb problems over it's time, mostly when you plug in more than one device (either into the mother board or through a hub) the first device disconnects, and then it becomes really difficult to get the second device to do anything, however, my current mouse issue may be unrelated, and is certainly far more annoying. When I don't use it for a short period of time, it just stops responding. A short period of time can be as little as a few seconds but sometimes its ok for what might be as much as a minute. Unloading and reloading the usbhid module gets it working again, but this is an absolute pain. Also, killing X also gets it working again... Anyone have any idea what I can do to make it work? Rob.

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Re: [ALUG] Toshiba 4030CDT & Linux
by Rob Page 21 Jul '06

21 Jul '06

On 7/21/06, Simon Royal <s.royal(a)totalise.co.uk> wrote: > Rob > > How will ubuntu fair on a Celeron 300Mhz, even running xubuntu? > > Simon To be honest, I haven't a clue. Although I used to run xfce4 happily on a p200 with 64mb ram, so that part of it should be ok! (although xfce has been getting more gnome-like recently).

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Confused about zone file and DNS setup
by cl＠isbd.net 21 Jul '06

21 Jul '06

I recently transferred a hosted domain (isbd.co.uk) from BSNet Ltd. to Gradwell dot Net. The transfer has basicaly gone OK, any reference to isbd.co.uk now gets served by the Gradwell servers. However I also have a domain isbd.net which is still hosted at BSNet Ltd. For some reason isbd.net works correctly (i.e. going to http://isbd.net gets web pages from BSNet) but if you go to http://www.isbd.net you get a message from Gradwell to say the site hasn't been set up. Both isbd.co.uk *and* isbd.net used to be hosted at BSnet so I suspect some misconfiguration there. However, although I supposedly have access to the zone files at BSNet (it still lists files for both isbd.net and isbd.co.uk) they don't make sense to me. Here is what I see:- ; This is a generic domain template ; $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns0.futile.net. root.futile.net. ( 2003011901 ; serial 28800 ; refresh 3600 ; retry 604800 ; expiry 86400 ) ; minimum ; IN NS ns0.futile.net. IN NS ns1.futile.net. IN MX 10 mx1.mail.bsnet.co.uk. IN MX 100 foundation.bsnet.co.uk. IN MX 200 relay.bsnet.co.uk. ; IN A ip.address.of.host ; localhost IN A 127.0.0.1 ; this is a commented out line It's identical for both. I suspect I'm not looking at the right thing. What confuses me further is that isbd.net is a US registration, it's registered at Network Solutions and I have full access to the settings there. How is it that there are settings for DNS etc. for isbd.net at both Network Solutions *and* BSNet, I'm very confused! Can anyone explain a bit or point me at a good tutorial please. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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(no subject)
by Simon Royal 21 Jul '06

21 Jul '06

--- www.simonroyal.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better so I bought a Mac There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who dont.

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Re: Encrypting data on web pages - how?
by chris＠isbd.co.uk 20 Jul '06

20 Jul '06

On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 12:26:14PM +0100, Tim Green wrote: > On 7/20/06, chris(a)isbd.co.uk <chris(a)isbd.co.uk> wrote: > >I want the 'source text' of the HTML page itself to be encrypted, i.e. > >if someone on the server system looks at the HTML itself then it will > >be valid HTML but with some encrypted gobbledegook in the <BODY>. > > > >Using https: will (hopefully) stop 'man in the middle' attacks (which > >always seem to me pretty unlikely) but does no good at all at protecting > >against someone who gets access to the server system. > > > >If I get really paranoid I will use https as well so the text isn't > >'in clear' while it's in transit to me but that's an extra. > > If UNIX style access protection is not sufficient to prevent snooping, > then it is very likely the snooper also has the ability to snoop the > network connection or even the active memory of the process decrypting > your files. Yes, but there's a very small time window when those methods of access are available, unenecrypted files sitting on disk are there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. > Also to consider: where would you like the decrypting key > stored? > In my head! > We appear to be heading towards the solution of storing encrypted > files on the server, and they are not decrpyted until they reach the > viewer. Is there a GPG plugin for Mozilla? > That would be the perfect (well, very good anyway) solution. > Tim. > > PS. Did you want to include ALUG again in the CC? > Yes, I must have hit r[eply] by mistake instead of L[istreply]. I've actually come up with an acceptable solution using mozex (a Firefox extension that I already use for other facilities). It allows a link with an arbitrary protocol (e.g. pwd://somewhere) to run any local executable. I have used this to pop up a small terminal window which does an ssh to the remote system and run vi on an encrypted file. Enter the correct password and there's the data I want. It runs across ssh so the data is encrypted on the way. The remote file is encrypted (as I wanted) though the encryption is probably not *very* strong. It's also rather impenetrable to anyone looking at the web page where the pwd://somewhere link is as it just looks like an invalid URL. Unless they have mozex *and* the script that the particular pseudo-URL links to they won't even know what it does. The disadvantage is that it's not particularly quick and is 'outside' the web pages but it's good enough for the present. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Encrypting data on web pages - how?
by cl＠isbd.net 20 Jul '06

20 Jul '06

I want to put some fairly (but not *very*) confidential data on some web pages. Are there any simple[ish] CGI utilities that allow one to save the text part of an HTML page in encrypted form and decrypt it "on the fly" when displayed after entering the correct password? I don't want to hide the HTML 'code' or Javascript or anything, just some small data items. Basically all I need to encrypt is a few words but bigger chunks than that would be fine too. A Google search doesn't help much as it comes up with hundreds of (crap) ways of hiding HTML, Javascript and such which I don't want. I know I can password protect access to a page using .htaccess (or equivalent) but I'd really like to encrypt the data so it isn't "in clear" anywhere. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Linux HTML WYSIWYG Editor
by Ian Douglas 19 Jul '06

19 Jul '06

Hi Folks, Can anyone recommend a Linux based WYSIWYG HTML editor for creating/editing a simple website? Thanks, Ian.

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Website Plans
by Simon Elliott 18 Jul '06

18 Jul '06

Hello all, So, myself and Dave have agreed to take over looking after the Alug website. We've had a talk and our plans are something along the lines of the following; - Get rid of all old and out-dated content. - Possibility of using Django if hosting is available. - Have a "community" section for stuff like the Planet etc. - A more formal part of the site for new people. - Keep the site more centralised - Have part wiki, part static kept up to date by us. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, let us know! -Simon

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 17 Jul '06

17 Jul '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Re: [ALUG] Website Plans
by Christopher Dawkins 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

> We've had a talk and our plans are something along the lines of the > following; > > - Get rid of all old and out-dated content. Instead of "Get rid of" how about "move down to a subdirectory called something like "old". Then over the next thousand years this can be developed into subdirectories for each decade or century - at any rate, a new one each time the site is redesigned. Our modern trend for "get rid of" causes so much landfill. Let's think of "preservation" instead. Today's boring records become interesting archives a century or two later. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Braintree Road, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DS cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Password security, Firefox, etc.
by chrisisbd＠leary.csoft.net 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

I'm still kicking around ways of remembering/storing passwords and would be pleased to hear any comments on my ideas. First question - how good is the Firefox 'Master password' approach? I run Firefox on two fairly safe/secure systems, one at home and one at work. None of the passwords I could (but don't at present) allow Firefox to save for me is really important but they would control access to things like Web site set up, E-Mail forwarding, zone files and such. The E-Mail in particular is important because my wife's freelance work depends on it (hence my recent questions about hosting). I am a bit wary of relying totally on Firefox, it doesn't give me warm feelings to rely on a 'black box' to save my passwords. On the other hand it would make setting up simple web pages with links to access configuration sites much simpler. What do others think about this? For more important stuff (bank access passwords etc.) I have a simple vi encrypted file which I open and decrypt in a small window by my browser. OK, I'm relying on vi/crypt but that is so unversally available that all I really need to worry about is keeping a secure copy of the file. I think it's pretty secure against most simple cracking approaches, the password is a good quality one and although the encryption algorithm isn't the best it's "good enough". -- Chris Green (chrisisbd(a)leary.csoft.net)

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