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Where to buy a Slackware 8.0 box in the UK?
by Joss Winn 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

Hiya, I've just bought an old P133 Dell laptop for writing essays and using a shell account on and think I want to put Slackware on it. I arrive back in the UK on the weekend and would like to order a boxed Slackware ASAP. Can anyone tell me where I can buy one from in the UK. I've used the Linux Emporium in the past but they still don't have the boxed sets. Thanks Joss

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Linux in the news
by David Freeman 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

All, For a nice return to topic. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/newsid_144… is a good story on techy gadgets and mentions linux and the I love linux camps etc... Most interesting. I like the bit "Old Amiga and Acorn computers have legions of fans, as does the ill-fated Apple Newton; there are Palm patriots and Ericsson evangelists. And there are thousands who worship at the church of Linux and its associated technologies. " Thanks D ===== -------------------- "We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." Linus Torvalds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Re: [Alug] Language, Education, Religion and History
by MJ Ray 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Sorry, folks. I think we're going to have to draw a line under this off-topic discussion of spelling and religion. People are unsubscribing from the list en masse, including some active participants, and there are more than enough other places to have this discussion, particularly in uk.* newsgroups. If someone wants to nominate an alternative place for it to continue, or bring the discussion back on-topic, that's OK, but otherwise expect the email-eater to be in use for the first time ever.

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Parental education was Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by Earl Brannigan 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Hi guys, Really a point of order... sorry list, this has sod all to do with Linux. OK, Gotta have two penneth here, happen to be well versed in both Theology and Religious History, I have for 5 years also been involved in cult exit counselling so I have seen the extremes of religious practice. David Freeman wrote: > To: Jenny_Hopkins(a)toby-churchill.com, alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk > --- Jenny_Hopkins(a)toby-churchill.com wrote: > > > > > > >The problem > > >is parenting ansd socail responsiblity aren't impressed upon people, > > >which as much as it hurts me to say it, because the lack of > > infleunce > > >of religion on people. The church had the role of teaching people on > > >moral issues and educating and supporting them through raising there > > >off spring. Because of enforcing bible in latin only and underpinning the snobbish practice of french being the de-facto language of the ruling classes the Church (ie the Catholic Church as-was) enforced ignorance on people. Thus the masses were not empowered by a moral code because they were unable to read it. Anyone translating the Bible into the common tongue was burned at the stake for it. After the reformation the bible ("the common Moral code") became available to all in the common tongue, however one still had to fall in line with the received interpretation of such else face a similar penalty. Thus rather than an morally uplifting mechanism for society religion has merely been a conformance-enforcement mechanism for a pre-determined 'moral, legal' code. > > Jen's soapbox of the day: > > Religion does not have a monopoly on morality. Religion is > > responsible > > for a lot of bad stuff. Religion was made to control, and the people > > in > > charge of it abuse their power. Morality through fear is not a > > solution. People have a monopoly on morality. People have chosen over the years to abdicate the responsibility that comes with morality to Religion. Morality is in effect conscience with laws. We know its wrong to commit murder, but without a common agreed law we would have nothing to train our consciences of that fact. Religion gives direction to our morality, validation and enforcement. Allowing us to trust our consciences by ensuring it complies with the moral code as interpreted by religion. The post-modernist world does away with the 'absolute truth' aspect of religious beleif ("Well, if it's true for you" is the mantra of the post-modernist). I think it is this aspect of society that is being highlighted in the comments leading up to this exchange. > > true, it is not an ideal situation, and I am in know way religious. But > they acted as a guide and the simple existance of a book of rules which > people read helps (bible , Torah etc...) The problem we have here is > one best described by Douglas adams "any person whos wants to be > presedent shouldn't be" and the same is true for the church, > unfortunatly like most big institutions it becam corrupt. > > > Intelligence and understanding should be the teachers of humanity. > > And how > > are people going to be intelligent or understanding without a fair > > chance > > in life? > > And in history who where the few literate people? the church, who would > then be able to guide people? the church. who had medical knowlegde? > the church. As mentioned above, corruption becomes possible through the concentration of such power (assertion : knowledge=power) in the hands of a select few. > > The church has been the corner stone of our society for so long and > although bits of it are corrupt it's overall effect has been a good > one. Good being a relative term, had the Church not survived beyond the 1st Century we cannot say whether the final result would have been good or bad. (ie better or worse than what actually happened) > > > There's nowt as strange as folks. > > So true. Hope this doesn't offend the religious persuasions of anyone on the list.. Regards Earl

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by MJ Ray 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > Also can people not reply to the poster and the list, just the list > will do. Now this is an age-old debate. Some people (including myself) actually quite like to get cc's, as it means that those actively involved in the discussion get responses to their messages quicker than if it's bounced via the list server first. However, others dislike the duplicate messages. There is no right answer to this one, I suspect.

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Language, Education, Religion and History
by John Seago 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Interestingly the grammer/spelling discussion has now reached the point where it touches upon religion. It is (probably mistakenly) my understanding that European Christianity owes its current position to the decision taken by the Roman Empire to use it as an extension of its political influence. However if one looks at the other institution used to extend the political influence of the Roman Empire, the Roman Army, the latter is currently older than the Church. John Seago

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by MJ Ray 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > EUROPEAN STANDARD ENGLISH Forwarded ancient mass-forwarded xenophobic "joke". > which as much as it hurts me to say it, because the lack of infleunce > of religion on people. The church had the role of teaching people on > moral issues and educating and supporting them through raising there > off spring. Irrelevant introduction of religion into the discussion of morals. Yep, this should start a small flame-war. Can people take this off-list, or at least trim quotes very heavily when replying, please? Thanks.

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

David Freeman wrote: >ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU! I like that. Have you read that Ray Bradbury story where a guy goes back in time and steps on a butterfly and when he returns to the present the language has changed just like this? >The problem >is parenting ansd socail responsiblity aren't impressed upon people, >which as much as it hurts me to say it, because the lack of infleunce >of religion on people. The church had the role of teaching people on >moral issues and educating and supporting them through raising there >off spring. Jen's soapbox of the day: Religion does not have a monopoly on morality. Religion is responsible for a lot of bad stuff. Religion was made to control, and the people in charge of it abuse their power. Morality through fear is not a solution. Intelligence and understanding should be the teachers of humanity. And how are people going to be intelligent or understanding without a fair chance in life? There's nowt as strange as folks. Jenny.

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by David Freeman 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

--- Laurie Brown <laurie(a)brownowl.com> wrote: > David Freeman wrote: > > > > All, > > > > My web site has now gone alpha. So could I ask for people to take a > > look and let me know of any bugs, speiling misstakes etc... Also > > constructive criticism would be nice. > > > > http://freemadi.alug.org.uk/ > > Before I get flamed for daring to speak the unspeakable, to whit: > grammar and > spelling *are* important, and that the results of trendy education > methods and > piss-poor teaching are a serious disservice to our young people, > note: I agree completely and admit that my english is crap. As for the education system, just don't get me started. > IMO, written English is no more difficult to master than any > programming > langauge, except that one doesn't need to compile English... Clear > communication is no less important, however, and going public on a > web site > *requires* that it be at least close to correct. The sole reason so > many > youngsters can't spell or write, is down to the education system and > crappy > teachers, abetted by the acceptance of poor standards by the world at > large. I > wonder, for instance, how so many people get through tertiary > education when > they can't write to save their lives (we all know examples). Again, I agree to the point I would say that a programming lnaguages and human lnaguages are very much the same sort of things but on different levels. Each has the sma e general constructs but under different terms, compare syntax and Grammer. Then add in correct spelling and a wide vocabulary, we have language. The problem comes from so much redundency which we add into the interpretation and thus make poor compilers. Take for example. Chocolate me need. me need chocolate I require a cocoa based product with added milk and sucrose sumplement. as you can see english has a lot of syntatic sugar, which isn't required for understanding to be had, this si where natural language processing comes in. Each sentence has verbs, adjectives etc... and the processor just processes the sentence for such words and treats them as objects. foe example the sentence "chocolcate me need" has the objects of me and chololate with the relation ship of "need" thrown in as "me" needing it. The problem we have is in our compilers or lexical analysis. We will parse the sentence a number of times in attempts to make sense of it, if after an arbitary number of passes we decide it doesn't make sense we barf an error. Where Computer languages come into there own is that the language is very strict in the constructs which are allowed and the lexical analysis is somewhat poor (compared to a human). As such Programmers and hackers tend to command a better than average use of their native language through this need for above average levels of accuracy. So to summerise, language has too much syntatic sugar which allows for interpretation from mal formed sentences where a Parse error whould be through. but through years of use we have go lasy and our interpreters have "improved" to the point that we no longer require such sytatic sugar and can use the language in a much reduced way. To summerise, english is a robust language to sumerise the summery of the summary: people are a problem. > Anyway, David, my initial comments: the site is so full of > grammatical and > spelling errors that it shouldn't be considered anything near ready > for > release. I'd suggest that if you have a problem with spelling, > grammar and > syntax, you get someone who hasn't to proof-read and correct it for > you before > you publish. This is what I thought which is why it is alpha not beta. It may now be apparent why I use Bascule as a nick at times. Also the purpose of sending it to the list was for it to be proof read, and I am greatfull of your input on this. > I picked up the following on a quick read-through, certainly there > are some I > missed. Please don't ask me to do this again! Thank you, I will get it into a high beta stage with as many mistakes as possible removed. > First para could do with a sprinkling of commas and/or > colons/semi-colons as it > has too many fragmented sentences: actually, this applies throughout > the site. > Additionally, there is a lot of random capitalisation of words, and > many words > uncapitalised when they should be. I stopped picking this up after a > while. Does any one know of a good site which explains the correct use of colons, semi colons and comas? Also what exactly is meant by fragmentation, word sometimes brings it up by I never knew what that means. Thanks for the input, it is very helpful Thanks D <snip my appaling spelling> > > Cheers, Laurie. > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Laurie Brown > laurie(a)brownowl.com > PGP key at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 > --------------------------------------------------------------------- ===== -------------------- "We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." Linus Torvalds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Andrew Savory wrote: >Sorry, but I don't agree. Written English is a heck of a lot harder to >master than programming. Most programming languages have a right and a >wrong way: ie, black and white, works or doesn't. They have a very limited >syntax and often there are many easily accessible books written on how to >program in a given language. >English, on the other hand, has too many shades of grey to make it easy to >master. Syntax, grammatical rules, spelling: all these things change based >not just on what country you're in but often depending on the region of a >country. In English, it's very difficult to pin down 'write' and wrong, >once you get beyond the basics of spelling and grammar. It becomes much >more subjective and more difficult to define. I agree. Teaching a small child to read and write brings it home just how erratic the english language can be. I think a few hundred years ago it may have made more sense, when "when" was spoken aloud with the "h" being audible, and the "k" in "knee" or "knight" also was heard. But look at bough, cough, through. As a small child, language is learnt first by ear then by reading. So any input at that age is more likely to result in proper spelling and grammer if the parents of a small child talk to them properly, and later if they are encouraged to read the written word. >Hmmm... again, I think it's easy to blame the education system and "trendy >methods" for falling standards, but I think a portion of the blame should >also be directed at the parents and society. TV doesn't encourage reading >and writing; the fast food disposable lifestyles we live also prohibit >attention to detail and focus on results over accuracy. Well, that one starts off a whole new debate on responsibility - who is responsible in this society and for what. Can you point a finger at a parent who sits their kid in front of the telly stuffing hamburgers when it is the way they were brought up themselves? At what point does someone have to face the fact that each person is ultimately responsible for themselves? (I don't know what I think the answer to this one is, it all makes me a bit confused). Laurie Brown wrote: >I've learnt that my views on grammar and written >English differ a little from most other people's... Oh yes, how is that? Jenny

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by MJ Ray 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I disagree :-) I have seen how perl scripts can be (and are) written, I > find english is far easier for me than programming. Of course I am crap at > both though.... Perl was designed to reflect the richness and idiom of natural languages in a programming language, hence the "there's more than one way to do it" banner. Whether or not that is a good thing is a long argument which has been had many times before and I believe certain people here can testify to the fact that perl scripts from speakers of different languages have different styles. What is also sure is that a number of languages now pride themselves on the fact that "there's one best way to do it" in their language. > Anyway I don't want to get drawn further into this debate, as I know that > you will hear me start to rant about education! I always think that I was lucky to get such a traditional education in the time when "trendy teaching" was at its peak. I feel really sorry for the people who, for example, never had their spelling corrected because it would demoralise them and have had to put in lots of work to turn it around. I don't have much sympathy for those who don't put in the work and just blame education for the bad spelling, though ;-)

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Re: [Alug] Going Alpha
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Ha ha! Just realised that I spelt "grammar" wrong in the last thread! What a gaffe!

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RE: alug digest, Vol 1 #302 - 13 msgs
by Earl Brannigan 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Hi Dave, David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> wrote : > > > > > > Are there any Crypto specialists on the list? > > I should have thought crypting was something you were expert at! > > Is this a fancy way of saying my messages are a we bit cryptic? or that > you thought this was something I did? No, "crypting" was a favourite pasteime of Bascule.... > > > sorry... completely useless post. > > Not really too kind. Cheers Earl

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Re: [Alug] Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Hi again all, Somebody has forwarded me the old IRC reminder, which I have included here. I'll sort out the cron job now ;) Reegards Neill > > This is the automated ALUG irc meeting reminder sent to remind you that > there is an irc meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. > > The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.openprojects.net in the > #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more > info on the openprojects network. > > Popular irc clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and ircII on Unix, and > Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. > > Unix > > http://www.bitchx.com > http://www.xchat.org > http://freshmeat.net > http://www.epicsol.org/ (for Brett!) > > Windows > > http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!) > -- Open Source Specialists http://www.entora.co.uk/ Tel: +44 (0)701 0723686 Fax: +44 (0)870 3214368

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

OK, as I'm sure most of you have read, Adam and Zeus have gone their seperate ways, and the weekly IRC reminder cron job has disapeared. I've been asked to set this up temporarly on one of our machines. The biggest problem is that I have always deleted the IRC reminders as soon as I get them, as I never forget to login ;) so, I don't have the words that used to be sent out! If somebody has an archived copy then let me have it. If not, I'll just make up some random words along the lines of "ALUG IRC meeting tonight, server: irc.openprojects.net, join #alug". there you have it, a slightly different weekly reminder for all those lurkers out there ;) Hope to see some new people this evening Regards Neill -- Open Source Specialists http://www.entora.co.uk/ Tel: +44 (0)701 0723686 Fax: +44 (0)870 3214368

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Meeting of the 12th of August
by John Seago 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Unfortunately I shall not be able to attend the meeting planned for the 12th of August, as I have a prior engagement. I was looking forward to meeting some of those whose names appear on the the daily digest, but I will have to wait until the following meeting. John Seago

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Connection Trauma
by David Howe 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Hello having a spot of bother.... I have just built a new box as follows Mandrake 7.1 Cyrix M2 333MHz (I know - cyrix - but it only cost me £20 so I wasn't gonna say no) 128 Ram ppp0 = External Dynamode modem eth0 = Via-rhine this is on 10.10.10.200 netmask 255.255.255.0 this machine connects to the net fine (tada! here I am) I also have (don't hit me please) a Win2K workstation (10.10.10.100), both are on 10Mbs LAN and ftp, http and SMB is fine between the two. Win2K machine is looking to 10.10.10.200 for web pages (for example) but is not getting any further i.e. getting no imformation from 10.10.10.200's ppp0 connection. ppp0 was set up in linuxconf rather than kppp and connects fine at boot and the "set default route" option is checked. I have no default route set as Linuxconf help suggested not to for ppp connections as they sort it themselves What haven't I done?? or what have I done wrong?? which processes should I look for to be running that probably aren't?? any help and sympathy appreciated Dave

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Which Linux distibution, please?
by Ruleng＠aol.com 16 Jul '01

16 Jul '01

Subj: Which Linux distribution, please? Date: 13/07/01 To: alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk Hello again, Everyone. I e-mailed alug a short while ago asking for help with the mini-distribution, muLinux. I still have not got that sorted out, but I am now in a different situation. By an incredible fluke that I will not bore you all with I have got my 40X CDROM drive running. I would now like to ask the group which distribution of Linux I should, or could, install. I will recap the hardware that I have in case my previous note has been mislaid. chip: i486DX 33MHz, upgraded to 133 MHz with Evergreen chip. hdd0: 210 Mb. with MSDOS 6.2 ( 4DOS addon) and Windows for Workgroups hdd1: 450 Mb. partitioned 240 Mb. for DOS and Windows, 210 Mb. for a Linux OS. ( Do I need another partition for Swap?). fdd0: 1.44 Mb. 40X CDROM drive. 16 Mb. RAM Both muLinux and Hal91 Boot+Root floppies. Oh yes: a 70-year-old brain. If there is not enough disk space for a recommended distribution, would it be possible for me to use only part of it at first, and which parts should a novice select? I would appreciate any advice that you could give me. Regards, Norman

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RE: alug digest, Vol 1 #300 - 25 msgs
by David Freeman 15 Jul '01

15 Jul '01

--- Earl Brannigan <earl.brannigan(a)lindenhouse.co.uk> wrote: > Hi Dave > > David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com>wrote : > > Jen aka Ergates is also from feersum endjinn as well. > Of course, it didn't click.... No it typed and clicked, and I think she normally breathes as well as a whole host of functions :o) > > > > All, > > > > I have booked Martlesham heath scout hut for the 12th august 2001. > > > > So the next meet will be sunday 12th August. > I think I can just make that date...... > > > > I will be inviting some members of GLLUG and LONIX. > LONIX sound alright but the other lot would probably drink all the > beer! ;o) > > > > > > ALso Don't forget the LUG BBQ afterwoods. How could I..... will we be burning Lugites at the steak? No but we may linch the NSD users and as for the MS certified sys admin we have on the list, well I cna't say before 9pm > > > > Are there any Crypto specialists on the list? > I should have thought crypting was something you were expert at! Is this a fancy way of saying my messages are a we bit cryptic? or that you thought this was something I did? > sorry... completely useless post. Not really Thanks D > Cheers > Earl ===== -------------------- "We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." Linus Torvalds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Going Alpha
by David Freeman 15 Jul '01

15 Jul '01

All, My web site has now gone alpha. So could I ask for people to take a look and let me know of any bugs, speiling misstakes etc... Also constructive criticism would be nice. http://freemadi.alug.org.uk/ Thanks D ===== -------------------- "We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." Linus Torvalds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Test
by MJ Ray 15 Jul '01

15 Jul '01

Apologies all. We seem to have had some problems with this list, so I'm trying to debug them with this test message. If you see it, all is working again.

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Re: [Alug] Bascule
by MJ Ray 13 Jul '01

13 Jul '01

Brett Parker <brettp(a)stu.uea.ac.uk> writes: > > Of course, you were *told* you had to be Neo, and you've been iDunno > > for what, *weeks* now? > Erm - months, at least 2 of, afaicr... Doesn't change that it's "weeks" too... or are we running on Brett Time? Or Internet Time(tm)?

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Re: [Alug] Bascule
by MJ Ray 13 Jul '01

13 Jul '01

Brett Parker <brettp(a)stu.uea.ac.uk> writes: > Erm, what for? I was just told I had to use Neo way back then, I've been > iDunno for the last god-knows-how-long :p Of course, you were *told* you had to be Neo, and you've been iDunno for what, *weeks* now? I love cognitive dissonance.

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Re: [Alug] Sending information between databases
by MJ Ray 13 Jul '01

13 Jul '01

Andrew Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> writes: > If you were exporting data and you didn't know who was going to use it, > then you might consider XML. Also, if the two databases are complex and differ, exporting to XML, doing some transformation and importing XML into the target database may have some value, but the right way to do it is to try to avoid the situation, I think ;-)

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Sending information between databases
by Ashley T. Howes 13 Jul '01

13 Jul '01

(This isn't a pure linux question, but I hope you can help) What is a good system for sending information between databases, with minimal human interaction? Situation is that someone has a database in one location, another person has another copy. The list of tables/fields between the 2 databases is not exactly the same, but have several tables in common. The two databases could be synched with a lot of human work, but is there a method to do this automatically - perhaps sending XML between the two? Anyone got experience in doing this sort of stuff? Ashley

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